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MOSS ENQ CO. N V. 



Sacred Mysteries 

AMONG 

The Mayas and the Quiches, 

11,500 YEARS AQO. 

THEIR RELATION TO THE SACRED MYSTERIES 
OF EGYPT, GREECE, CHALDEA AND INDIA. 

FREE MASONRY 
git gimjes ^uizxioy^ to ilxz ^cmplje jcrf .goXomott. 

ILL USTRA TED. 

BY 

AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON, 

Author of "A Sketch of the Ancient Inhabitants of Peru, and their Civilization ;" 

"Vestiges of the Mayas ; " " Essay on Vestiges of Antiquity ; " "Essay on 

the Causes of Earthquakes ; " " Religion of Jesus compared with the 

Teachings of the Church ; " " The Monuments of Mayax and 

their Historical Teachings." 



NEW YORK : 
BoBEBT Macoy, 4 Barclay Street. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, March 15, 1886, by 

AUGUSTUS LEPLONGEON, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



All Eights Reserved. 




Mr, Pierre Lorillard, 



THIS SMALL HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE SACRED MYSTERIES PRAC- 
TICED IN REMOTE AGES BY THE MAYAS AND QUICHES 

5s 1Rc0pectfulIi2 BeOicateD, 

AS A FEEBLE TESTIMONIAL OF MY APPRECIATION OF HIS EFFORTS TO 
HELP IN REMOVING THE VEIL THAT HAS SO LONG HUNG OVER 
THE HISTORY, CUSTOMS AND CIVILIZATION OF THE AN- 
CIENT INHABITANTS OF THIS WESTERN CONTINENT. 

AUGUSTUS LE PLONGEON. 

New York, May 2oth, 1886. 



PKEFACE. 



The forests of Yucatan and Central America are 
to-day, for the majority of the people of the United 
States, even those who call themselves scientific and 
well informed, as much a terra incognita, as Amer- 
ica was to the inhabitants of Europe before its dis- 
covery by Cristobal Colon in 1498, when for the first 
time he came in sight of the northern coast of South 
America, and navigated along it from the mouth of 
the river Orinoco to Porto Cabello in the Golfo 
Triste. 

A few, having perused the books of J. L. Stephens, 
Norman, and other tourists who have hurriedly vis- 
ited the ruins of the ancient cities that lie hidden in 
the depths of those forests, have a vague idea that 
there exist the remains of stone houses built some 
time or other before the discovery, aver authorita- 
tively that "their builders were but Httle removed 
from the state of savagism, and that none of their 
handwork is worth the attention of the students of 
our age. Their civilization, they confidently say, 
was at best very crude. They were ignorant of the 



VI PREFACE. 

art of writing; and the scanty records of their his- 
tory chronicled on deer-skins, in pictorial represen- 
tations, are well nigh unintelligible. They had no 
sciences, no mental culture or intellectual develop- 
ment. They were in fact a race whose intelligence 
was for the most part of lower order. From what 
they did nothing is to be learned that has any direct 
bearing on the progress of civilization. " In no wise 
can they be compared with the Egyptians or the 
Chaldees, much less with the Greeks or Romans; 
it is not, therefore, worth our while to spend time 
and money in researches among the ruins of their 
cities. It is to Greece, it is to Egypt, to Chaldea, that 
Americans must go in order to make new discoveries. 
In those countries must be established schools for 
study of Greek, or Egyptian, or Chaldean archaeol- 
ogy: and American schools have been established at 
Athens and Alexandria, and expeditions sent to 
Syria, to the shores of the Euphrates. 

But the European scientists, who for many years 
past have explored those old fields in order to obtain 
relics to fill the shelves of the museums of their cap- 
itals and turned up the soil of the Orient in search 
of archaeological treasures, now look to the Western 
continent in quest of the origin of those ancient civ- 
ilizations which they have been unable to find in 
the countries where they once flourished; and they 
look with that reverence which true learning begets, 



PREFACE. vii 

on those ancient American temples and palaces that 
are objects of contempt for some modern American 
scientists. 

Thus we see established in Paris the '' Societe des 
Americanistes " whose sole object is the study of all 
things pertaining to ancient American civilization. 
That Society, composed of students, spares no efforts 
to obtain knowledge respecting the architecture, the 
sciences, the arts, the language, and the civilization 
of the people who inhabited, in remote ages, the 
various countries of this Western continent. A 
premium of 25,000 francs lias been offered for the 
discovery of an alphabet or key to the inscriptions 
carved on the walls of the monuments in Yucatan 
and Central America. M. Desire Charnay has been 
sent to obtain molds of the sculptures and other 
precious rehcs that he hidden and lost in the recesses 
of the Central American forests. Casts have been 
made from such squeezes as he obtained. These 
casts adorn the Trocadero Museum at Paris, dupli- 
cates of the same having been presented to the 
Smithsonian Institute at Washington by Mr. Pierre 
Lorillard of New York. This gentleman is the only 
American who has ever contributed with his wealth 
and influence (he has spent 25,000 dollars) in expedi- 
tions for the recovery of facts and objects that may 
throw Hght on the ancient history of America. 

Then again we have in Europe the international 



Vm PREFACE. 

"Congres des Americanistes " that convenes every 
four years in one of the capitals of Europe for the 
purpose of collecting all new data, obtained in the in- 
terval, concerning ancient American civihzation. 

In England, at Cambridge, there is in the Univer- 
sity a large building especially dedicated to Central 
American archaeology. There are to be seen, as I 
am informed by General Sir Henry Lefroy, the casts 
and photographs obtained by Mr. Maudslay, a 
wealthy gentleman who has devoted his time and 
wealth to the work of obtaining facsimiles in 
plaster and photographs of the ancient monuments 
of Honduras and Guatemala. 

But what have we in New York, in the United 
States, in fact, to offer to students of American 
archaeology ? 

True, Mr. George Peabody, among his many bene- 
factions, left a sum of money for the foundation of 
a museum to be specially dedicated to the collection 
of objects pertaining to American archaeology. Such 
museum exists at the University of Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. It bears his name. Does it contain 
anything that may throw light on the history of the 
ancient inhabitants of this Western Continent? I 
once wrote to an influential gentlemen connected 
with the University asking him to propose to the 
trustees the purchase of a copy of my collections of 
casts and mural paintings. His answer dated July 



PREFA.CE. IX 

23d, 1885, was: "I will send your letter to one of 
''the trustees, enjoining him to accej^t its offer, but 
" I fear they will treat that proposal as they have so 
''many others and say no! The collection of trac- 
kings they ought to secure. The time has come 
"when such things should be got at any cost. We 
"shall soon be as they are in India, hunting 
"everywhere for things which were easily to be 
"had a few years ago." 

My correspondent has visited the ruined cities of 
Yucatan; he knows the value of my collections. 

I have done all in my power to call the attention 
of American scientists, of the men of leisure and 
money, to the fact that in New York perfect fac- 
similes of the palaces and temples of the Mayas could 
be erected in Central Park, both as ornament to the 
place, and object of study for the lovers of American 
archaeology who may not have the means, nor the 
time, nor the desire, to run the risk of submitting 
to the privations and hardships that those who wish 
to visit the ruined cities, must jnevitably encounter. 

But alas ! all in vain. 

Three years ago I had casts made from some of the 
stereotyped moulds made by me of the sculptm^es at 
Uxmal and offered them for exhibition in the Met- 
ropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park. They 
have been placed in the cellar, out of the way, " for 
want of space against the wall." The pubhc has 



X PREFACE. 

never seen them. I once remonstrated with one of 
the trustees, and proposed to sell to the museum a 
copy of the collection of fresco paintings from 
Chichen Itza, last remnants of ancient American art. 
The answer of the gentleman was " No! those things 
are not appreciated, they are looked upon as of no 
value," Nevertheless, some of the illustrations in 
this book are photographs of the same despised casts 
and mural paintings. 

During the last lecturing season I offered to sev- 
eral literary, scientific and historical societies, to 
give lectures illustrated with views made by us of 
the monuments, and enlarged with the stereopticon. 
In every instance I received the same answer, 
"Our people are not interested in such a subject," 
What ! Americans not interested in American 
antiquities! in ancient American history! in ancient 
American civilization! 

Desiring to make the subject known before the 
lecture season was over, en desespoir de cause, I 
asked Dr. John Stoughton Newbury, of the School 
of Mines at Columbia College, if he could give me a 
chance to present the subject before the members of 
the New York Academy of Science. I had no hope 
of a favorable answer; but to my great surprise Pro- 
fessor Newbury received my offer enthusiastically. 
Mrs, Le Plongeon lectured on the monuments of 
Yucatan on the 2nd of March last, at Columbia Col- 



PREFACE. XI 

lege. Let the ladies and gentlemen who were pi-es- 
ent say if the facts and views presented to them 
were of sufficient interest to command their attention. 
A lady, Mrs. Francis B. Arnold, residing at 21 West 
12th Street, New York, was so pleased that she 
asked Mrs. Le Plongeon to lecture at her own house 
to a select party of friends. Let again the ladies and 
gentlemen who were present at Mrs. Arnold's house, 
say if there is nothing worth seeing and studying in 
the remains of ancient American civilization. 

Let Mrs. Arnold and Dr. Newbury accept our 
heartfelt-thanks for affording us an opportunity of 
presenting ancient America to a few appreciative 
minds, if no miore. 

Mrs. Le Plongeon and I have written two works 
on Yucatan. One is: "Monuments of Mayax, and 
their historical teachings." The other: ''Yucatan, 
its ancient palaces and modern cities; hfe and cus- 
toms of the Aborigines." We have offered them to 
several pubhshing houses, but the same answer has 
been given by all. "There is no money in the pub- 
hcation of such books; American readers do not care 
for this subject." 

Notwithstanding such rebuffs, I made up my mind 
to present to American readers some of the historical 
facts that have been brought to light by deciphering 
the bas-rehefs and mural inscriptions, by means of 
the ancient hieratic Maya alphabet discovered by me. 



Xll 



PREFACE. 



Ancient Maya Hieratic alphabet ac- 
cording to mural inscriptions. 



Egyptian Hieratic alphabet ac- 
cording to Messrs. ChampolUon le 
Jeune and Bunsen. 



A 


O. A. 0. 


J^. «. ^. 


6 


B.n 


luiml* ft.ii » ^^J * 


C 


"Vi^. 4 CP. 


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H 
I 


1 . rn.^.n . 


f.ra.n . 


K 


K. .^.^.G^,<$. 


21. c^.ra.Cp.'S^^..-^:?^ 


L 


®./.. 


©./z.v. 


M 


n- «='-0i- 


cn-cs-rtl-ca. 


K 


r,Ml Cvo- 9. 


AA/*/ • 





o. 


^. 


P 


H. n. 8.' 


H. □. 


PP 


ffi. n. 


D-Ei- 


T 


T. /:2i.A. 


A.£2i.^. 


TH 


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b . <^.CW0. 


Q. 


X 


X. a. . 


K^. P- © 


T 


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Z 


c:-.-«^m. 




CH 


Sl'^if. 




CH 


G=^. 


Cr^.Q, 


TZ 


IZ. 


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D 


r^.Cb. 


H" ^. 


E 


1. 


// . 



I offer them in this small volume that I take pleas- 
ure in dedicating to Mr. Pierre Lorillard, as the most 
worthy of it among the Americans, for his generous 
help to students of American archaeology. 

If the perusal of this book fails to awaken in this 
country an interest in ancient American civilization 
and history, then I will follow the advice said to 
have been given by Jesus of Nazareth to his dis- 



PREFACE. XI 11 

ciples when sending them on their mission of 
spreading the gospel among the nations: "And 
"whomsoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, 
''when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under 
''your feet. . . " St. Mark, chap, vi., verse 11— for 
I shall consider it useless to spend more time, labor, 
and money on the subject in the United States, re- 
membering the fate of Professor Morse, when he 
asked Congress for permission to introduce his elec- 
tric telegraph in this country. 

In this small book (which two of the most prom- 
inent firms in New York have positively refused to 
pubhsh believing it to be a bad speculation), I pre- 
sent only such facts as can be proved by the works 
of well-known writers ancient and modern, and 
by the inscriptions carved on stone by the Maya 
learned men and historians. It is for you. Reader, 
to judge if they are worthy your consideration. 



ILLUSTRATIOI^S.* 



Symbolical stone found in the Mausoleum of high 

pontiff Cay at Chichen. 19 

View of the pyramid called " House of the Dwarf," 

at Uxmal 34 

Ground plan of the Sanctuary, 35 

Ground plan of the Temple of Mysteries, ... 86 

Part of cornice surrounding the Sanctuary, ... 39 

Cross bones and skeletons carved on the cornice of the 

Sanctuary, 39 

Part of a statue with apron on which is sculptured the 

image of an extended hand. (From Uxmal.) . . 40 

Symbolical slab with title of the high pontiff, . . 45 

Symbols from the turret dedicated to the high pontiff 

Cay in the palace of King Can, at Uxmal, . , 65 

Tableau of the creation, from the east fa§ade of the 

palace at Chichen-Itza, 73 

Prince Coh in battle (from mural paintings at Chichen- 
Itza), 78 

Prince Coh's body laid out for cremation (from mural 

paintings at Chichen-Itza), 80 

Slab from Prince Coh's Mausoleum, at Chichen, leop- 
ard eating the heart of his enemies, .... 85 

Dying leopard with human head, from Prince Coh's 

Mausoleum at Chichen-Itza, 86 

Priest of Osiris making an offering (from the tombs of 

Thebes), 86 



XVI ILLUSTRATIONS. 

„ PAGE 

Statue of Prince Coh, found in his Mausoleum at 
Chichen-Itza, now in the National Museum in the 

City of Mexico, 87 

Slab from Prince Coh's Mausoleum at Chichen, repre- 
senting Queen Moo, under the figure of a macaw, 
eating the heart of her enemies, .... 88 
Tableau of the Mastodon worship, at Chichen, . . 93 
Sculptures on monolith gate at Tiahuanuco (Peru), 
from a model in the museum of the Long Island 
Historical Society in Brooklyn, .... 103 
Small terra cotta heads from British Honduras, . . 104 
Symbols of lower Egypt (from Sir Gardner Wilkin- 
son's works on Egypt), 115 

PlateXVII, part II. ofTroanoM.S., . . . .116 

Plate XXV. part II. of Troano M.S., head dress of 

mother Earth, 118 

Bas-reliefs from sm.all room at the foot of Prince Coh's 

monument at Chichen-Itza, .... 118, 119 

Maps of the Maya Empire, ...... 120 

Yaxche, sacred tree of the Mayas, 124 

Plate VI., part II. of Troano M.S., .... 126 

Worship of sacred tree (Papaya) from a Mexican M.S., 

in the library of the British Museum, . . . 134 
Plate XXIV., part I., Troano M.S., . . . .137 
Sons of King Can, represented under the symbol of 
deer-heads, totem of the country, plate XVI, part 
II. of Troano, M.S., - 139 

♦From drawings and photographs made by the author, and engraved by the 
Moss Engraving Co., by the new process of Mr. John C. Moss. 



SACRED MYSTERIES 



AMONG 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 



THERE are authors who attribute the origin 
of modern Free Masonry to the followers of 
Pythagoras, because some of the specula- 
tions of that Philosopher concerning the meaning 
of the numbers are to be found in the esoteric 
doctrines taught in the masonic lodges. Others, 
on account of the Christian symbols that have 
been incorporated in the decoration of things 
pertaining to Masonry, following the Swedish sys- 
tem, say that the Essenes and first Christians founded 
it. Others, again, make it originate in the building 
of Solomon's temple, many Jewish names, emblems 
and legends, taken from the Bible, having found 
their way into the rites of initiation to several de- 
grees. Others, stiU, make it go back to Adam. Ask 
them why — they do not know. While not a 
few, and I among them, earnestly believe that 
Masonry existed before Adam was created. I 



3 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

believe it, because I am convinced that this pre- 
tended ancestor of man is a myth — and has never 
existed. Thomas Payne and those of his school say 
that the Druids were the fathers of the craft; they 
being worshipers of the sun, moon and stars : and 
these jewels of the firmament being represented on 
the ceilings of the M. ' . lodges. Dance of Yilloison 
speaks of Herculaneum as its birth place, because of 
the many similarities that existed between the col- 
legia of the Romans and the lodges of the operative 
Masons of the middle ages. Michael Andrew Ram- 
say, a Scotch gentleman, in a discourse dehvered in 
Paris in 1740, suggested the possibiHty of the fra- 
ternity having its origin, in the time of the crusades, 
among the Knight Templars, and he explains it in 
this way : — 

The Pope, Clement V., and Phillippe-le-bel, King 
of France, fearing the power of the Templars and 
coveting their immense wealth, resolved to destroy 
the Order. When, in 1308, Jacques de Molay, then 
Grand Master of the Order, was preparing an expe- 
dition to avenge the wrongs and disasters suffered 
by the Christians in the East, the Pope, who was the 
only power to which, in the spiritual, the Templars 
owed allegiance, enticed him to France. 

On his arrival he was received with every mark of 
friendship: but, soon after, the King caused him to be 
arrested together with some of the other dignitaries, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 3 

accusing them of the most heinous crimes, imputing 
to them the secret rites of their initiation. By order 
of the Archbishop of Sens and his provincial coun- 
cil, Jacques de Molay, Guy of Auvergne and several 
other officers of the Order were bui'ned alive on 
March 18, ISl-i. 

The Pope, by a bull dated on the 2d of April, and 
pubhshed on the 2d of May, 1312, that he issued on 
his own responsibility, the Council of Vienne, in 
Dauphine, being adverse to hasty measures, declared 
the Order abolished throughout the world. The ex- 
ecution of the Grand Master and his companions 
gave the coup de grace to the Order. Some of the 
Knights who had escaped to Portugal continued the 
Order. They assumed the title of Knights of Christ, 
which it bears to this day; but it never recovered its 
former prestige and power. 

Jacques de Molay, before dying had appointed 
Johan Marcus Larmenio as his successor to the office 
of Grand Master. The Knights who, fleeing from 
the persecution, had taken refuge in Scotland at the 
Court of King Robert Bruce, refused to recognize his 
authority; and pretending to reestabhsh the Order 
of the Temple, mider the allegory and title of Archi- 
tects, protected by the King, laid the foundation of 
the Order of Free and Accepted Masons of the Scot- 
tish Rite in 1314. 

This new society soon forgot the meaning of the 



4 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

execratory oath that the members were obliged to 
take at their initiation ; the death of Clement V., 
of Phillippe-le-bel, of the accusers and enemies of 
Jacques de Molay and the other Knights who had been 
executed, having removed the object of their ven- 
geance. Still they continued to decorate their lodges 
with tokens commemorative of the death of the 
Grand Master, to impose on all new members the 
obligation of avenging it, which they signified by 
striking with an unsheathed dagger at unseen beings, 
his supposed murderers, although all their efforts 
were now directed to the restoration of the honor 
of their association. This allegory is well-known 
to the Knights of Kadosh. A century had scarcely 
elapsed when this idea also was abandoned, the 
founders and their disciples having passed away. 
Their successors saw only allegories in the symbols 
of the Order, and the extensive use of words and 
texts from the Bible was then introduced. Of their 
work but little is positively known until the reign of 
Charles I. of England, when their mysterious initia- 
tions began to attract attention. 

The enemies of Cromwell and of the Republic, 
having in view the reestablishment of the monarchy, 
created the degree of Grand Master to prepare the 
minds of the Masons for that event. King Wil- 
liam III, was initiated. Masonry, says Preston, was 
very much neglected as early as the reign of James 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 5 

II., and even after this period it made but slow prog- 
ress until 1714, when King George I. ascended the 
throne. 

Three years later, in February, 1717, the first Grand 
Lodge was estabhshed in London, A committee 
from the four lodges then existing in that city met 
at the tavern of the "Apj)leTree" and nominated 
Anthony Sayer, who was elected Grand Master on 
the 24th of the following June, day of St, John the 
Baptist, that for this reason was selected as patron 
of the Order, 

This origin of the craft is credited by many of the 
best authorities on the subject. They found their 
opinion on the fact that many of the ceremonies 
practiced by the Architects are stiU. observed among 
the Masons ; and that the Grand Lodge preserved, 
with the spmt of the ancient brotherhood, its fun- 
damental laws. There are others, however, who 
likewise claim to be well informed, that pretend it 
did not originate in any order of chivalry, but in 
the building fraternities of the Middle Ages. 

Be the origin what it may, the fact is that after 
the estabhshment of the Grand Lodge at "Apple 
Tree Tavern," Masonry spread over Europe at a 
rapid rate, notwithstanding the bitter opposition of 
the Chiu-ch of Eome that fulminated against it its 
most terrible anathemas as early as 1738 at the in- 
stigation of the Inquisition. Pope Clement XII., on 



6 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

the 28th of April of that year, caused a prohibitory 
bull to be issued against Free Masonry, entitled In 
Eininenti, in which he excommunicated all Masons; 
and the Cardinal Vicar of Kome, by edict in the 
name of the High Priest of the God of Peace and 
Mercy, decreed the penalty of death against them in 
1Y39 ; and on May 18, 1751, Pope Benoit XIV. re- 
newed the bull of Clement XII, by another beginning 
with these words : Providas Romanorum Pontificum. 

The Order was introduced in France in 1725, and 
on the 14th of September, 1732, all Masonic Asso- 
ciations were prohibited by a decree of the Chamber 
of Pohce of the Chatelet of Paris. 

In 1727, Lord Coleraine founded a lodge in Gib- 
raltar, and in the succeeding year in Madrid, the 
capital of Spain, the strong-hold of the Inquisition. 

But in 1740, in consequence of the bull of Clement 
XII., King PhiHp V., of Spain, promulgated an ordi- 
nance against the Masons in his kingdom, many of 
whom were arrested and sent to the galleys. The 
Inquisitors took advantage of the opportunity to 
persecute the members of a lodge they discovered 
in Madrid. They caused them to be loaded with 
chains, to be obhged to row in the gaUeys without 
other retribution than scanty rations of victuals of 
the poorest quality, but an abundant supply of bas- 
tinade. Fernando VI. renewed the ordmance on 
July 2, 1751, making Masonry high treason. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 7 

The brotherhood made its appearance in Ireland 
in 1730. It is not positively known if it existed in 
the country before that time. 

In 1732 it crossed the Atlantic and was imported 
in America. In that year a lodge was held in " Tun 
tavern " in Philadelphia, the B. *. having previously 
met in Boston, which may be regarded as the birth- 
place of American Free Masonry. Henry Price was 
the first provincial Grand Master appointed by the 
Grand Lodge of England on April 30th, 1733. 

The same year witnessed its establishment in va- 
rious cities of Italy. In 1735, the Grand Duke Fran- 
cis of Lorraine was mitiated. He protected the 
Masons, and the craft flourished in Italy until 1737, 
when Juan Gaston of Medicis, Grand Duke of Tus- 
cany, issued a decree of prohibition against it. Soon 
after his death, which occurred the same year, the 
lodges which had been closed were reopened. It was 
not long, however, before they were denounced to the 
Pope Clement XII., who issued his buU of 28th of 
April 1738, and sent an inquisitor to Florence who 
caused various members of the society to be cast into 
dungeons. They were set at hberty as soon as 
Francis of Lorraine became Grand Duke of Tuscany. 
He not only protected the Masons, but f otmded lodges 
in Florence and other places in his estates. 

In 1735 a lodge was estabhshed in Lisbon the 
capital of Portugal. It wiU be remembered that 



8 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

some of the Knight Templars, under the title of 
'^ Knights of Christ," had kept alive the ancient 
order in that country in defiance of the Pope's 
thunderbolts. 

Among the Masons initiated in England were 
a great many Germans as early as 1730. These seem 
to have met occasionally in traveling in Germany, 
or to have corresponded with each other; but no 
lodge is known to have existed previous to the year 
1737, when one without name was estabhshed in 
Hamburg, although Grand Master Lord Strathmore 
had authorized in 1733, eleven gentlemen and Broth- 
ers to open one. 

In 1740, B. Puttman, of the Hamburg lodge, re- 
ceived a patent of Provincial Grand Master from 
England, and the lodge assumed the title of Absa- 
lom. 

King Frederick II. , denominated the Great, whilst 
still Crown Prince, had been initiated; and from the 
time of his initiation took great interest in the wel- 
fare of the brotherhood. Crowned King of Prussia, 
he continued to give it his support, assuming the 
title of ^^ Great master universal, and Conservator of 
the most ancient and most respectable association of 
ancient free masons or architects of Scotland.'''' Ma- 
sonry enjoyed under his reign such consideration, 
that many German princes, following his example, 
were initiated; and so many of the nobihty joined 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 9 

the society, that to belong to it came to be regarded 
as a mark of nobihty and high breeding. 

Notwithstanding his multifarious State duties, and 
the many wars that took place during his reign, which 
demanded his constant attention, he found time to 
frame a constitution to cement together again the 
Order, that at one time, owing to external persecu- 
tions on the one hand, to internal dissensions, suscita- 
ted by the incorporation to it of the Rosicrucians and 
still more that of the Ilhmiinati on the other, seemed 
on the eve of falling asunder. That constitution, 
signed by him in his palace at Berlin, on the 1st of 
May, 1T86, saved Free Masonry from annihilation in 
Germany, for many regarding it with suspicion, at- 
tacked and persecuted it: the Catholics because it 
came from Protestant England; the Protestant 
clergy looked upon it as hostile to Christianity, be- 
cause of the teachings and symbols altogether Catho- 
lic of the 18th degree, those of Rosa Cruz, whose 
motto "we have the happiness of being in the paci- 
fic unity of the sacred numbers," and "in the name 
of the holy and indivisible Trinity," bespeaks its 
Jesuit origin. The people beheved in the accusation 
of witchcraft and sorcery, made against it by its 
enemies, because of the vail of secrecy thrown over 
their meetings. 

Authors have endeavored to show that modern 
free-masonry is not derived from the mysteries 



10 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

of the ancients. J. G. Findel, an advocate of 
this opinion, says: "Seeing that the ancient sym- 
bohcal marks and ceremonials in the lodges bear 
a very striking resemblance to those of the mysteries 
of the ancients some have allowed themselves to 
be deceived, and led others astray imagining they 
can trace back the history of the craft into the 
cloudy mists of antiquity. Instead of endeavoring 
to ascertain how and when these ceremonies were 
introduced into our present system, they have taken 
it for granted that they were derived from the 
reUgious mysteries of the ancients." 

Now, if we merely consider the tokens of recogni- 
tion, the pass words and secret words, the decora- 
tions of the lodges, according to the degrees into 
which modern Masonry is divided, tokens, words 
and decorations nearly all taken from the Bible and 
symbolical of events, real or imaginary, some of 
which are said to have taken place in comparatively 
modern times, after the decline and final discontin- 
uance of the ancient mysteries in consequence of 
the spread of Christianity; others having occurred 
in the early days of the Christian era; others at the 
time of the building of Solomon's Temple, all of which 
had certainly nothing to do with the rehgious mys- 
teries of Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, Etruria, etc., that 
were instituted ages before the pretended occurrence 
of those events, then we may positively affirm that 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 11 

it is not derived from these. But if, on the other 
hand, we observe, and it is difficult to overlook 
it, that these symbols are precisely the same that 
we fuid in the temples of Egypt, Chaldea, India, 
and Central America, whatever may have been the 
esoteric meaning given to them by the initiated 
of those countries, we are bound to admit that a 
link exists between the ancient mysteries and Free 
Masonry. It is for us to try to discover when that 
hnk was riveted and by whom. 

If the theory of Chevaher Ramsay be true, that 
is, if modern Masonry had its beginning in the 
Society of Architects founded in Scotland under the 
protection of King Robert Bruce, and the title of 
"Ancient and Accepted Masons of the Scottish rite," 
seems to favor that opinion, then we may trace its 
origin to the order of Knight Templars; and through 
them to the ancient mysteries practiced in the East 
from times immemorial. It is weU. known that one 
of the charges made against Jacques de Molay and 
his associates by their accusers was that they used 
secret rites in their initiations. Their four oaths 
were weU known; but not their rites of initiation. 
What were they ? 

We are told that the aim of the Society of Archi- 
tects was to perpetuate the ancient Order of the 
Temple. It is therefore to be presumed that they 
continued to observe the rites and ceremonies prac- 



12 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

ticed in the chapters of the Templars, to use them at 
the initiations of members into the new Society, to 
whom they communicated the intimate meaning of 
their symbols. Were these rites analogous to those 
observed in the initiations to the symboHcal degrees ? 
These degrees were, it must be remembered, the only 
ones originally recognized by the brotherhood; as 
there are but three in the Society of Jesus; the Neo- 
phites — the Coadjutors — and the Profess; as there 
were anciently among the priests of the temples of 
Egypt, who indeed considered it a great honor to be 
judged worthy of admission to the third degree; that 
is, to participation in the greater mysteries. Was 
their explanation of the symbols similar to that 
taught in M. ' . lodges ? The Templars were accused, 
as Masons are to day, by the Komish Church, since 
it has lost its hold and influence on the association, 
of the crime of heresy, and many Masons have 
suffered death by being burnt alive as heretics. 

From whom did the Templars receive those sym- 
bols, and their esoteric meaning, in which we plainly 
trace the doctrine of Pythagoras ? No doubt from 
the Christians who, like the Emperor Julian, the 
Bishop Synnesius, Clement of Alexandria and 
many other pagan philosophers, who had been in- 
itiated to the mysteries by the priests of Egypt, be- 
fore being converted to Christianity. In that case 
the connection of modern Masonry with the ancient 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 13 

religious mysteries of Egypt, consequently with 
those of Greece and Samothracia is easily traced; 
and the resemblance of the symbolical marks and 
ceremonials of M. • . lodges with those of the mys- 
teries naturally accounted for. Thus it is that many 
masonic authors may have been led to trace the 
origin of the craft to followers of Pythagoras; and 
others to the Essenes and first Christians. 

Krause, in his work, has endeavored to prove 
that Masonry originated in the associations of opera- 
tive masons that in the Middle Ages travelled 
through Europe, and by whom the cathedrals, 
monasteries, and castles were built; whose funda- 
mental laws, traditions, customs and tools are now 
used in the lodges in a figurative sense. 

These associations may have sprung from the 
building corporations of the Eomans: if so, we have 
a connectmg link between the lodges of the Middle 
Ages and the mysteries of the ancients. The initiates 
of the architectural collegia of the Romans did not 
call themselves Brothers; this is a title that came 
into use only when the Christian Masonic fraterni- 
ties adopted it. They styled themselves Collega or 
Incorporatus. 

They worked in buildings apart or in secluded 
rooms; and the constitution of M. " . lodges, so far as 
the officers, their titles and duties, and the symbols 
are concerned, is so similar to theirs that one might 



14 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

be inclined to believe that the early Masons imitated 
the Roman collegia. 

This theory is not without semblance of plausi- 
bility. Eome, during several centuries, held sway 
over Gaul and Britain. Roman colonists settled in 
various parts of those countries. With their lan- 
guage and customs they imported many of their 
institutions and associations. That of the builders or 
collegia, as is manifest from the remains still existing 
of the magnificent roads and edifices of various kinds 
constructed by them. The CoUegse held their 
lodges wherever they estabhshed themselves; no 
doubt initiated new members. In the course of time, 
when those countries freed themselves from the yoke 
of Rome, these societies of builders became the asso- 
ciations of the itinerant operative masons which 
inherited the symbols, tokens and pass words of the 
Collegse. These, in all probability, had received them, 
either from the Chaldean magicians, who flocked to 
Rome at the beginning of the Christian era, when 
the progress of philosophical incredulity had shaken 
the confidence in legal divination; or from some of 
the priests of inferior order, all initiated to part of the 
lesser jmysteries, that, when the sacerdotal class hav- 
ing lost in majesty, power and wealth, in order to 
preserve whole its numerous hierarchy, repaired to 
the Capital of the world to escape misery by levying 
contributions on the credulity and superstition of 
the people. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 15 

The Christian Church, on the one hand, the Roman 
emperors on the other, fearing the influence of those 
magicians and priests, persecuted them even to 
death. These learned and wise men formed secret 
societies to preserve and transmit their knowledge. 
These societies lasted during the Middle Ages — the 
Eosicrucians, the Theurgists, among them. Leibnitz, 
one of the greatest men of science that ever lived, 
who died in Hanover, in 1716, at the age of seventy 
years, became a member of one of these societies; 
and there received an instruction he had vainly 
sought elsewhere. 

Were their mysterious meetings remnants of the 
ancient learned initiations ? Everything tends to 
make us suspect it. The trials and examinations to 
which those who applied for initiation were obliged 
to submit; the nature of the secrets they possessed; 
the manner in which they were preserved. In these 
again may be found an explanation of why so many 
of the Pythagorean doctrines made their way into 
Masonry. 

Of the ceremonies performed at the initiation into 
the mysteries of Egypt we know but httle at present, 
for the initiated were very careful to conceaj these 
sacred rites. Herodotus tells that if any person di- 
vulged any part of them, he was thought to have 
called down Divine judgment upon his head, and it 
was accounted unsafe to abide in the same house 



16 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

with him. He was even apprehended as a public 
offender and put to death. 

Still, on reading the visions in the book of Henoch, 
and comparing them with what we know of the 
trials to which were subjected the apphcants for 
initiation into the greater mysteries of Eleusis and 
Egypt, and those of Xibalba, one can scarcely refrain 
from beheving that, under the title of Visions, the 
author relates his experience at the initiation, and 
what he learned in the mysteries before being con- 
verted to Christianity. That book is beheved to have 
been written at the beginning of the Christian era, 
when, under the yoke of the Eoman emperors, the 
customs and rehgion of the Egyptians fell into de- 
cadency; and the Christian bishops of Alexandria, 
such as George, Theophilus, Cyril, the murderer of 
the beautiful, learned and noble Hypathia, daughter 
of the mathematician Theon, persecuted the wor- 
shipers of Isis and Osiris, and converted their temples 
into Christian churches, after defacing and white- 
washing the ancient sculptures that covered their 
walls, on which they painted rough images of saints. 
It may be that its author, although having embraced 
Christianity, still retained in his heart of hearts a 
strong love for the ancient institutions that were 
fast disappearing in the midst of the poHtical and 
rehgious dissensions that were raging at the time. 
Fearing lest the learning of the priests of old and the 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 17 

knowledge he had acquired by his initiation into the 
mysteries should become lost, the dread of death be- 
ing removed by the new order of things, he put, for 
greater safety, in the mouth of Henoch, as instruct- 
ing his son, what he had seen and learned in the 
secrecy of the temples. 

Let us hope that further discoveries in the ruins 
of the temples, or in the tombs, may put into our 
possession some papyrus whose contents will throw 
hght on the subject, and reveal these secrets. The 
masonic objects found under the base of the obehsk, 
known as Cleopatra's needle, now in Central 
Park, New York, show that many of the symbols 
pertaming to the rites of modern Free Masonry, 
where used in Egypt by building organizations and 
architects at least 1900 years ago. And although I 
do not agree with aU the conclusions of Dr. Fanton, 
notwithstanding they are approved by some of the 
high masons at Cah-o and Alexandria, I am ready to 
recognize many of the emblems, and admit that they 
belonged to the mysteries, if their meanmg anciently 
was not quite the same as we give them to-day. 

The reluctance of the Egyptians to admit strangers 
to the holy secret of their mysteries was for a very 
long time insuperable. However, they seem to have 
relaxed at rare intervals, in favor of personages 
noted for their wisdom and knowledge. So they 
admitted the great philosopher Thales, who went to 



18 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

Egypt to learn geometry and astronomy, about 587 
years before the Christian era. Eumolpus, king of 
Eleusis, who, on returning to his country, instituted 
the mysteries of that name in honor of the goddess 
Ceres, that presided over the crops and other fruits 
of the earth. Orpheus, the celebrated Greek poet, 
obtained likewise the honor of the initiation, and 
estabhshed the Orphic ceremonies, which, according 
to Herodotus, were observed alike by the Egyptians 
and the Pythagoreans. It must be remembered that 
Pythagoras, after being submitted to extremely se- 
vere ordeals, to cause him to desist from his desire of 
being initiated, was, on account of his firmness, 
granted the privilege of initiation. Many of the rites 
and ceremonies were therefore brought from Egypt 
to Greece. Speaking of the Thesmophoria festivals in 
honor of Ceres, next in importance to the mysteries 
of Eleusis, Herodotus says: "These rites were 
brought from Egypt into Greece by the daughters 
of Danaus, who taught them to the Pelagic women; 
but in the com'se of time they fell into disuse, except 
among the Arcadians who continued to preserve 
them. The Pelasgians had also initiated the inhab- 
itants of Samothracia. They in turn taught the 
Athenians the mysteries of the ' Cabiri.' " 

From that it results that if we desire to obtain an 
insight of the Egjrptian mysteries, we must see what 
happened at the initiation into those of Greece. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 19 

No one could be admitted to the greater unless 
they had been purified at the lesser, and one year at 
least had elapsed since they had become mystai or 
initiated. 

The initiation to the greater mysteries when the 
Mystai took the degree of Ephoroi, that is Inspector, 
by being instructed in the secret rites, except a few 
reserved for the priests alone, was as follows: 

The candidate, being crowned with myrtle, which 
was used instead of the acacia, was admitted by 
night into an immense building called the Mystikos 
Sekos, that is the "mystical enclosure." At their 
entrance they purified themselves by washing their 
hands in holy water, being at the same time ad- 
monished to present themselves with minds pure 
and undefiled, without which external cleanliness of 
the body would by no means be accepted. After 
this the holy mysteries were read to them from a 
book called Petroma, because the book consisted of 
two stones fitly cemented together. I have discov- 
ered such stones, last year, in the mausoleum of high 
pontiff Cay, in the city of Chichen-Itza, in Yucatan. 
The priest who conducted the ceremonies was called 
Merophantes. He proposed certain questions, to 
which answers were returned in a set form. Then, 
strange and amazing objects presented themselves. 
Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake, as 
if an earthquake was occurring, or whirl round and 



20 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

round as if carried away in a tornado. Sometimes it 
appeared bathed in bright and resplendent light, and 
flames seemed to issue from the walls, threatening 
to consume the temple; and all of a sudden they 
were extinguished by invisible hands, and the most 
profound obscurity succeeded to the dazzling radi- 
ance. Flashes of lightning, at intervals, broke 
forth with extreme brilliancy, only to make the dark- 
ness more dark, when peal after peal of thunder 
caused the building to shake to its very foundations. 
These were succeeded by loud cries for help and 
laments of persons in great agony; soon to be re- 
placed by the most frightful noises and bellowings, 
and terrible apparitions. The nerves of the appli- 
cants were tried to the utmost, and required to be 
strung by the most indomitable will and moral as 
well as physical courage, to enable them to with- 
stand to the last such awful trials. 

All the faint hearted were invariably rejected and 
refused admission to the next degree, the Epopteia, 
or Inspection. Powerful narcotic drugs were ad- 
ministered to the timorous, that plunged them into 
a deathlike sleep, from which they emerged with 
but confused recollections, if not entire f orgetf ulness, 
of the terrible scenes they had witnessed, and which 
they believed to be produced by some frightful 
dream or dreadful nightmare. 

I will now quote from the book of Henoch. Chap. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 21 

xiv. ver. 12. — "I saw a spacious habitation built 
with stones of crystal. The roof had the appear- 
ance of agitating stars and flashes of lightning. 
Flames bm^nt around its walls, its portals blazed with 
fire. This dwelling was hot as fire — cold as ice." 
Chap. xvii. ver. 1. — " They raised me up into a cer- 
tain place where there was the appearance of burning 
fire, and when they pleased, they assumed the like- 
ness of men," — (ver. 3) — and I beheld the receptacles 
of Hght and of thunder at the extremities of the place. 
There was a bow of fire and arrows in their quiver — 
a sword of fire and every species of hghtning." 

Chap. xxi. vers. 4. — "Then I passed to another 
terrific place — (ver. 5) — where I beheld the opera- 
tion of a great fire blazing and gUttering, in the 
midst of which there was a division — columns of 
fire struggled together to the end of the abyss and 
deep was their descent. (Ver 6.) — This was the place 
of suffering. ' ' 

Those who resisted to the last the trials of the 
Autopsia, as the initiation was caUed, were then dis- 
missed with these three words : Kon-x Om Pan-x, 
which, strange to say, have no meaning in the Greek 
language. Captain Wilford, in his Essay on Egypt, 
says they correspond to the words Cansha Om Pan- 
sha, which the Brahmins pronounce every day to an- 
nounce to the devotees that the rehgious ceremonies 
are over. They have been translated, " retke, re- 



33 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

tire, profane ! " Corresponding to the ite missa est 
of the Catholic Church. 

These words are not Sanscrit, but Maya. ^^ Con-ex 
Omon Panex,^'' go, stranger, scatter ! are vocables, of 
the language of the ancient inhabitants of Yucatan, 
still spoken by their descendants, the aborigines 
of that country. They were probably used by the 
priests of the temples, whose sumptuous and awe- 
inspiring ruins I have studied during fourteen years, 
to dismiss the members of their mystic societies, 
among which we find the same symbols that are 
seen even to-day in the temples of Egypt as in the 
M. • . lodges. 

I wiU endeavor to show you that the ancient 
sacred mysteries, the origin of Free Masonry conse- 
quently, date back from a period far more remote 
than the most sanguine students of its history 
ever imagined. I will try to trace their origin, step 
by step, to this continent which we inhabit, — to 
America — from where Maya colonists transported 
their ancient religious rites and ceremonies, not only 
to the banks of the Nile, but to those of the Eu- 
phrates, and the shores of the Indian Ocean, not less 
than 11,500 years ago. 

But let us return to the mysteries of Eleusis. In 
the trials to which the Mystai were subjected to try 
their fitness to become Ephoroi, Masons no doubt 
recognize several of the ceremonies that took place 



■*THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 23 

at their initiation into the craft. If Free Ma- 
sonry had not its origin in the ancient Sacred Mys- 
teries, how could these rites have found their way 
into it ? 

The Ephoroi were now prepared for the third 
degree, the Epopteia — the most sacred of all. In this 
the Epoptai or "Inspectors of themselves" were 
placed in presence of the gods, who were supposed 
to appear to the initiated. Proclus, a philosopher, 
disciple of the divine Plato, in his commentaries on 
the Repubhc of his master, says: " In aU initiations 
and mysteries, the gods exhibit themselves under 
many forms, and appear in a variety of shapes. 
Sometimes their unfigured hght is held forth to 
view. Sometimes this hght appears under a human 
form, and sometimes it assumes a different shape." 
And again, in his commentaries on the first Alci- 
biades: " In the most holy of the mysteries, before 
the god appears, the impulsions of certain terrestrial 
demons become visible, alluring the initiated from 
undefiled good to matter. ' ' Then all the seductions 
that human mind can imagine to excite the passions 
were placed within the grasp of those who aspired 
to become Epoptai. They were mvited to freely 
give way to voluptuousness, to the enjoyment of all 
kind of mundane pleasures, before they renounced 
them forever. Nothing that could possibly entice 
apphcants to f aU. from their state of moral and physi- 



24 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG - 

cal purity was omitted; all that could be done to 
induce them to yield to temptation was resorted to. 
If in a moment of weakness they allowed their 
senses to obtain the mastery over their reason, woe 
to them ! for before they could reahze their position, 
before they had time to recall their scattered 
thoughts, the bright surroundings disappeared as 
by magic; they were plunged in the most dense ob- 
scurity; the ground gave way under their feet; and 
they were precipitated into a deep abyss, from 
which if they escaped with their hfe, they never did 
with their reason. 

Theon of Smyrna, in his work Matematica, di- 
vides the mysteries into five parts. 

1. The purification. 

2. The reception of sacred rites. 

3. The Epopteia, or reception. 

4. End and design of the revelation, the building 
of the head and fixing of the crowns. 

5. The friendship and interior communion with 
God, the last and most awful of all the mysteries. 

It is supposed the prophet Ezekiel alludes to 
these initiations, when he speaks of the abomma- 
tions committed by the idolatrous ancients of the 
house of Israel in the dark, every man in the cham- 
bers of its imagery. 

Here again, I will quote from the book of Henoch: 
Chap. xxii. — "From thence I proceeded to another 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 25 

spot where I saw on the West a great and lofty 
mountam, a strong rock and four dehghtful places." 

Chap. xiv. ver. 14.^ — ^"Then I went to another 
habitation more spacious than the former. Every 
entrance which was opened before me was erected 
in the midst of a vibrating flame. Ver. 18. — Its 
floor was on fire, above were hghtning and agitated 
stars, whilst its roof exhibited a blazing fire. Ver. 
21. — ^One of great glory sat upon the orb of the 
brilliant sun. Ver. 24. — A fire of great extent con- 
tinued to rise up before him." 

It is said that the ordeal through which the candi- 
dates were obliged to pass previous to admission into 
the Egyptian mysteries, were even more severe, 
and that Pythagoras, wise philosopher as he was, 
had a narrow escape from it. 

The priests alone could arrive at a thorough under- 
standing of the mysteries. So sacred were their 
secrets held that many of the members of the 
sacerdotal order, even, were not admitted to a par- 
ticipation of them; but those alone who proved 
themselves deserving of the honor; since Clement of 
Alexandria, teUs us: "the Egyptians neither en- 
trusted their mysteries to every one, nor degraded 
the secrets of divine matters by disclosing them to 
the profane, reserving them for the heir apparent 
to the throne, and for such of the priests as excelled 
in virtue and wisdom." 



26 SACRED 3IYSTERIES AMONG 

From all we can learn on the subject, the mys- 
teries consisted of two kinds, the greater and the 
lesser, divided into many classes. The candidate 
for initiation had to be pure, his character without 
blemish. He was commanded to study such lessons 
as tended to purify the mind. Great was the honor 
of ascending to the greater mysteries and it was diffi- 
cult to attain to it. An inscription of a high priest 
at Memphis, says Mr. Samuel Birch, states: "That 
he knew the arrangements of the Earth, and those 
of Heliopolis and Memphis; that he had penetrated 
the mysteries of every sanctuary; that nothing was 
concealed from him; that he adored God and glorified 
Him in aU His works, and that he hid in his breast 
aU that he had seen." Had he not kept his secrets 
so carefully concealed, no doubt he would have told 
us that at one of the initiations the figure of the 
god Osiris, in whose honor the mysteries were cele- 
brated, and whose name the initiates did not dare 
pronounce, appeared to the candidate, as it did at 
Heliopolis to Pianchi, king of Ethiopia. 

At a later period, when the ancient customs had 
become relaxed owing to the invasion of the coun- 
try by foreigners and to the government passing 
from the hands of native rulers to those of Persian, 
of Greek or Eoman governors, many, besides the 
priests, came to be admitted to the lesser mysteries. 
But aU had to pass through the different grades and 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 27 

conform to the prescribed rules, as in the case of 
Thales, Eumolpus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, 
Herodotus and others. 

I will not here describe at length the initia- 
tions to the mysteries in honor of the Sun God, 
Mithra, instituted by Zoroaster, but only state that 
Porphyrins, on the testimony of Eubulus, says that 
this philosopher and reformer having selected a 
cavern in a pleasant locality in some mountains 
near Persia, dedicated it to Mithra, the Sun, creator 
and father of all beings; that he divided it into 
geometrical figures intended to represent the chmates 
and elements; in a word that he imitated in a small 
way the order and disposition of the universe by 
Mithra. After him, it became customary to conse- 
crate caverns for the celebration of mysteries; as we 
see yet in Japan. 

The candidates for initiation to the Mithra mys- 
teries were submitted to the most awful trials — 
among which one was to try the docility and cour- 
age of the apphcant. He was ordered by the priest 
to kill a man. According to Plutarch, in his hfe of 
Pompeius, these mysteries were brought to the 
Occident by Cihcian pirates about sixty-eight years 
before the Christian era. They were well received 
by the Greco-Latin world, and the initiated were 
soon to be counted by thousands. In the time 
of the Emperor Adrian, the mysteries of Mithra had 



28 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

become so popular that Pallas, a Greek writer, com- 
posed a poem on the subject, that Porphyrius has 
preserved in a special treatise on the abstinence from 
the use of animal flesh. 

The mysterious initiations vividly impressed the 
imagination, as at times and by v^ay of expiation, 
human victims were offered and immolated. The 
ceremonies of the priests consisted, says Origenes, 
in imitating the motions of the celestial bodies, 
those of the planets, in fact of the heavens. The 
initiated took the names of the constellations and 
dressed themselves as animals. A theology purely 
astronomical was taught in these mysteries, in 
which they used the purification by water in honor 
of the goddess Ardvi goura andhita, " She of the 
celestial waters;" the confession of sins; and a sort 
of eucharist, or offering of bread, still observed by 
the Parsis or fire worshippers in India. It may be 
said that during the last years of the Roman Empire, 
the reUgion of Mithra had become the state religion. 
It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, if it extended 
to the Roman provinces of Gaul and Britain, and if 
some of its rites have found their way into Free 
Masonry, and are practised to the present day; thus 
again relating it with very ancient sacred mysteries, 
established by Zoroaster, the author of the Zend- 
Avesta at least 1,100 years before Christ, although 
Hermippus, the Greek translator of his work, places 
him 5,000 years before the taking of Troy. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 29 

If we go to Hindostan, there we will learn of a 
secret society of wise and learned men, whose ob- 
ject is the study of philosophy in all its branches, 
but particularly the spiritual development of man. 
The leading fraternity is established in Thibet; and 
the high pontiff and other dignitaries of the Lama 
rehgion belong to it. They are known throughout 
India by the name of Mahatmas or Brothers. To 
obtain this title it is necessary to suffer a long and 
weary probation, and pass through ordeals of terri- 
ble severity. Many of the Clielas, as the aspirants 
are called, have spent twenty, even thirty years of 
blameless and arduous devotion to their task, and 
still they are in the earher degrees, looking forward 
to the happy day when they may be judged worthy 
to have the title of Brother conferred upon them. 

These Mahatmas are the successors of those secret 
societies of learned Brahmins, so celebrated for their 
wdsdom, from very remote ages, in India; and of 
whose colleges or lodges, always built on the summit 
of high mounds, either natural or artificial, Alexan- 
der, the Great, when he achieved the conquest of that 
country, was never able to take possession. Philo- 
stratus informs us, that their mode of defense consist- 
ed in surrounding themselves with clouds, by means 
'of which they could at will render themselves visible 
or not, and hurhng from their midst tempests and 
thunder on their enemies. Evidently in those early 



30 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

times, they had discovered gunpowder, or some 
other explosives of Uke nature, and made use of 
them to explode mines, and destroy their assailants. 
These same Brahmins claimed to have been the 
teachers of the Egyptians, who, according to that, 
would have received their civilization and scientific 
knowledge from them, as also did the Chaldeans. 
It is well known that the Magi were strangers who 
came to Babylon, possessors, says the prophet Dan- 
iel, not only of a special learning, but of a pecuhar 
tongue. They formed a powerful society, into which 
at the beginning none but those of their own people 
were admitted, as their science was both exclusive 
and hereditary. A certain rehgious character was 
attached to the whole body; every priest must be a 
Chaldean, but every Chaldean was not a priest. They 
passed their whole hves in meditating questions of 
philosophy. Astronomy was their favorite study; 
but they acquired great reputation for their astrol- 
ogy. They were versed in the arts of prophesying, 
of explaining dreams and prodigies, and the omens 
furnished by the entrails of victims offered in sacri- 
fice. The parents taught the children. At their head 
was a high pontiff with the title of Rab-mag, A^ener- 
able, or according to its meaning in the Maya lan- 
guage. Lab-mac, " the old man.^^ At Babylon they 
were the ruhng order, the advisers of the King. 
Nothing is known to-day of their rites of initiation; 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 31 

but they must have been very sunilar to those of 
the Egyptians, since the civihzafcion of Chaldea and 
that of Egypt v^ere twin sisters; offspring from 
the same parents. 

I have endeavored in a cursory manner to shovr 
that the ancient sacred mysteries were estabhshed 
for the same purpose in every civiKzed nation of 
antiquity, that is for the cultivation of science; the 
acquirement of knowledge; the bettering of man's 
moral and physical nature; the development of his 
intellectual and mental faculties; the understanding 
and study of the laws that govern the material and 
spiritual world, thus bringing him into closer con- 
tact wdth Deity. They kept their learning and dis- 
coveries a profound secret, surrounding them with 
mysterious allegories, and enigmatical symbols, for, 
as says Strabo: "to surround the things that are 
holy with a mysterious obscurity is to make Divinity 
venerable, is to imitate its nature that escapes man's 
senses," or, as Gregory of Nazianze, wrote to Jerome: 
"the less ignorant men understand the more they 
admire," and as the priests of to-day, in fact of all 
times, of aU rehgions, they wished to be regarded 
by the masses as dispensers of the god's favors, as 
mediators between the Deity and man. 

This similarity of the rites practiced in the initia- 
tions, the identity of symbols, proves that these rites 
and symbols had been communicated from one to an- 



32 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

other, just as in modern Free Masonry the initiations 
are the same in the lodges, the world over, having 
been carried to the most distant lands, by travelers, 
colonists or missionaries, from the fountain head, the 
Grand Lodge of England. 

But with respect to the ancient Sacred Mysteries, 
the query arises as to where they originated. We 
know that from Egypt and Chaldea they were 
brought to Greece and Rome. From whom did 
the Egyptians and Chaldeans receive them ? The 
Brahmins asserted that the Magi and the Hiero- 
phants were their disciples. 

Admitting this assertion to be true, may we not 
ask, from whom did the Brahmins learn them ? No 
doubt, if we question them on the subject, they wiR 
answer that they are the originators of these mys- 
tic rites, and secret societies of learned men; and 
with difficulty we could gainsay their assertion, 
were it not that Plutarch and other Greek writers, 
who have described the Eleusinian mysteries, have 
taken care to preserve the words used at the closing 
of the ceremonies by the officiating priest; and also 
made known to us the name and shape they gave 
to their place of meeting. 

It is well known that the Brahmins, in many of 
their religious ceremonies, make use of words that 
are not Sanscrit, but are said to belong to a very 
ancient form of speech — now dead — the Akkadian, 



THE 3IAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 33 

spoken by the inhabitants of the countries situated 
along the banks of the Euphrates, near its mouth. 
Strange as it may appear, this language presents 
many affinities with the Maya, which is still the ver- 
nacular of the aborigines of Yucatan and other 
countries south of the Peninsula. The fact is that 
the words con-x — om—pan-x, mean nothing in 
Greek, but, as we have said, are pure Maya vocables, 
that have the same meaning as that given to cmi- 
sha — om — Pansha by Captain Wilford. 

That is not all. We are also told that the place or 
temple where the initiated assembled to perform 
their ceremonies, had the form of a rectangle. 



and that it represented the "Universe." Modern 
Masons have wrongly translated that idea by the 
Sanscrit word loga, from which the word lodge has 
been derived, and the form of M. * . lodges adopted. 

The shape of the temples was that of the Egyptian 
letter If called "wia", a word that also means place, 
country and, by extension, the Universe. The Egyp- 
tians adopted it, therefore, not because they behoved, 
as Dr. Fanton suggests, that the earth was square or 
oblong, for they knew full well it was spherical, but 
because the sign of the word ma', conveyed to their 
mind the idea of the Earth, as the word eai'th repre- 
sents it to ours. But ma is also the radical of May- 
ax; and likewise, in the Maya language, it means 
the country, the Earth. The Mayas selected the 



34 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

oblong square \ i to represent it, because it is the 
geometrical figure that is nearest in shape to the 
contours of the Yucatean peninsula. 

So we have found a bridge to cross the vast ex- 
panse of water that lies between the Eastern and 
"Western Continents — a clue that may lead us to the 
birth-place of the ancient sacred mysteries in those 
T^^ "Lands of the West," ^ that "Land of 
Xm," the mother-land of the gods and of the ances- 
tors of the Egyptians, where the god Osiris reigned 
supreme over the souls emancipated from the tram- 
mels of matter. 

In the depths of the forests that cover the soil of 
Central America, lie hidden, under a cloak of ver- 
dure, the ruins of ancient cities. There, are to be 
seen the crumbling, awe-inspiring remains of grand 
old monuments; mementos of the power and civili- 
zation, of the scientific and intellectual attainments 
of the mighty races that erected them, and have 
disappeared forever in the abyss of time. 

At Uxmal, one of these ancient great metropolis 
in Yucatan, there exists an artificial mound of pecu- 
har construction. 

The entire structure measured 29 metres (about 
95 feet) in height; 66 metres (214 feet 6 inches) in 
length at the base, and 33 metres (107 feet 3 inches) 
in width. The lower part is formed of the frustum 
of an elliptical cone 14 metres (45 feet 6 inches) in 




MOSS TYPE 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 35 

height, divided into 1 gradients, each 2 metres high. 
On the upper plane of the frustum, which forms 
a terrace 35 metres long by 10 metres wide, are con- 
stinicted the Sanctuary, or Holy of HoUes, facing 
west, whose ground plan is made in the shape of a 
cross with a double set of arms; and a truncated 





West. 



GROUND PLAN OF SANCTUAHT. 



rectangular pyramid 6 metres high, the upper plane 
of which supports the crowning edifice 6 metres 
high, 29 metres long and 7 metres wide. 

This building emblem of the " Lands of the West, " 
is composed of three separate apartments 2m. 25c. 
wide, having originally no communication with each 
other. Holes have been bored in the partition walls 
that have much weakened the construction ; for 



36 



SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 



what purpose it is difficult to surmise, unless it be 
for the love of destruction. 

The rooms at the extremities are of the same size, 
5m. 50c. (about 17 feet 10 inches) long, while the 
middle chamber is Ym. 25c. in length. The door of 
this chamber faced west, and led, by means of a 
small stair, to a terrace formed by the roof of the 
sanctuary. 

East 



^S^^^^^^$^^^^^^^^ 




West. 

GROUND PLAN OF TEMPLE OP MYSTERIES. 

From there the learned priests and astronomers, 
elevated above the mists of the plains below, could 
without hindrance follow the course of the celestial 
bodies, in the clear cloudless skies of Yucatan, 
where at times the atmosphere is so pure and trans- 
parent that stars are clearly visible to the naked eye, 
that require the aid of the telescope to be seen in 
other countries. 

The doors of the other rooms faced East. The 
ceilings, like those of all the apartments in the 
monuments of Yucatan and Central America, form 
a triangular arch. This shape was adopted by the 
builders, not because they were ignorant of how to 
construct circular arches — since they erected edi- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 37 

fices roofed with domes, but in accordance with 
certain esoteric teachings pertaining to the mysteries 
and relating to the mystic numbers 3.5.Y. 

This kind of arch is also found in the ancient 
tombs of Chaldea, at Mughier — in the center of the 
great pyramid of Ghizeh, in Egypt — in the most 
ancient monuments of Greece, as the treasure room 
at Mikene, in the tombs of Etruria and other places. 

Here, again, we learn from the book of Henoch, 
that the subterranean building that he constructed 
in the land of Canaan in the bowels of the moun- 
tain, with the help of his son Mathusalath, was in 
imitation of the nine vaults that were shown to 
him by the Deity, each apartment being roofed with 
an arch, the apex of which formed a key-stone with 
mirific characters inscribed on it. Each of the nine 
letters, we are told, represented one of the nine 
names traced in characters emblematical of the at- 
tributes of Deity. Henoch then constiTicted two 
triangles of the purest gold, and traced two of the 
mysterious characters on each. One he placed in 
the deepest arch; the other he entrusted to Mathu- 
salath, to whom he communicated important secrets. 




Thou art Bait (the soul); thou art Athor, one of the Bia; and thou art Akori. 
Hail, father of the world ! hail, triform God ! 



38 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

The triangular arches appear, therefore, as land- 
marks of one and the same doctrine, practised in 
remote times, in India, Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, 
Etruria and Central America. 

In the ceilings of the rooms situated at the north 
and south extremities of the building are carved in 
peculiar and regular order, in deep intaglio, semi- 
spheres, ten centimeters in diameter, intended to 
represent the stars that at night so beautify the 
firmament. Inside of the triangle formed at each 
end of said rooms by the converging hnes of the arch 
are also several of these semispheres — those in the 
north room form a triangle (Fig. 1); while those in 





i''iG. 1. Fig. ^. 

the south room, five in number, figure a trapezium 
(Fig. 2); with one of these half spheres in the middle. 
The middle chamber is now devoid of decorations 
of any sort. Its length, seven meters, is to-day the 
only vestige which remains to indicate that in it, in 
former times, were practised rites and ceremonies 
pertaining to the third degree of initiation. This 
chamber could be reached by walking on the nar- 
'row terrace round the building; but I feel certain 
that those whose privilege it was to assemble within 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 39 

its walls, got to it from the west side. There was 
a stairway nine metres wide, beautifully orna- 
mented, leading from the cornet yard adjoining the 
priests' palace, to the entrance of the sanctuary. 
Thence another small stairway 2m. 40c. wide, sit- 
uated on the north side of the sanctuary, led to the 
upper terrace, to the roof of that monument, and to 
the middle chamber. The access to the north and 
south rooms was by a grand stairway of ninety-six 
steps, each 20cm. high, that led to the upper terrace 
surrounding the whole edifice. This stairway, sit- 
uated on the east side of the mound, is fourteen 
metres (45 feet 6 inches) wide, and, like that on the 
east side, so steep as to require no little practice and 
care to ascend and descend its narrow steps with 
comparative safety and ease. 

A few centimetres above the hntel of the entrance 
to the sanctuary is a cornice that surrounds the 
whole edifice. On it are sculptured these symbols, 




/T^fJ?^ 



many times repeated. On the under part of this 
cornice are small rings cut in the stone, from which 
curtains were suspended, to hide the Holy of HoMes 
from profane gaze. 
The exterior of the monument was once upon a 



40 



SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 



time ornamented with elaborate and beautifully 
executed sculptures, which have now, in great part, 
disappeared. Still those that adorn the exterior 
walls of the sanctuary, remain as specimens of the 
beautiful handiwork and of the great skill of the 
artists; whilst the exquisite architectural proportions 
of the whole edifice bespeak the mathematical and 
other scientific attainments of the architects who 
planned the building and superintended its erection. 
The ornaments that cover these walls are remark- 
able in more than one sense. They are not only 
inscriptions in the Maya language, written in char- 
acters identical with, and having the same meaning 
and value as those carved on the temples of Egypt; 
but among them are symbols known to have be- 
longed to the ancient sacred mysteries of the Egyp- 
tians, and to modern Free Masonry. In August 
1880, among the debris, at the foot of the mound 
just described, I found pieces of what once had 
been the statue of a priest. 
The part of the statue, from 
the waist to the knee, par- 
ticularly attracted my atten- 
tion. Over his dress the 
personage wore an apron 
with an extended hand, as 
seen in the adjoining illustra- 
tion. A symbol that wiU easily be recognized by 
members of the masonic fraternity. 




THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 41 

We must not forget that Plato informs us that 
the priests of Egypt assured Solon, when he visited 
them 600 years before the Christian era, that all 
communications between their people and the in- 
habitants of the "Lands of the West" had been 
interrupted for 9,000 years, in consequence of the 
great cataclysms, during which, in one night, the 
large island of Atlantis disappeared, submerged 
under the waves of the ocean. Are we not then 
right if we surmise that the monuments of Mayax 
existed 11,500 years ago, and that mysteries, similar 
to those of Egypt, were celebrated in them? To 
support that belief we have the symbols already 
mentioned as existing in the chambers, the con- 
struction of the chambers themselves, the sculptures 
carved on the cornice that surrounds the sanc- 
tuary, representing cross bones and skeletons, with 
arms and hands uplifted, tokens that many of the 
Masons again cannot fail to recognize; besides other 
emblems that I will endeavor to explain, which 
exist on the walls of the residence of the priests, 
an edifice adjoining that temple. This may be 
considered the oldest known edifice in the world 
consecrated to secret rites and ceremonies; and its 
builders the founders of the sacred mysteries, that 
were transported from Mayax to India, Chaldea, 
Egypt, Etruria, by colonists or missionaries. 

What the ceremonies of initiation were among the 



42 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

Mayas, it is difficult to surmise at present, all their 
books, except four that still exist, having been de- 
stroyed by the monks who came with the Spanish 
adventurers, or soon after the conquest. 

But they must have been similar to the rites of 
initiation practiced by the Quiches, a branch of the 
Maya nation, at Xihalha, a place in the heart of the 
mountains of Guatemala. We learn from the Popol- 
Vuh, sacred book of the Quiches, that the apphcants 
for initiation to the mysteries were made to cross 
two rivers, one of mud, the other of blood, be- 
fore they reached the four roads that led to the 
place where the priests awaited them. The crossing 
of these rivers was full of dangers that were to be 
avoided. Then they had to journey along the four 
roads, the white, the red, the green and the black, 
that led to where the council, composed of twelve 
veiled priests, and a wooden statue dressed and wear- 
ing ornaments as the priests, awaited them. When 
in presence of the council, they were told to salute 
the King; and the wooden statue was pointed out to 
them. This was to try their discernment. Then they 
had to salute each individual, giving his name or title 
without being told; after which they were asked to 
sit down on a certain seat. If, forgetting the respect 
due to the august assembly, they sat as invited, 
they soon had reason to regret their want of good 
breeding and proper preparation, for the seat, made 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 43 

of stone, was burning hot. Having modestly de- 
clined the invitation, they were conducted to the 
"Dark house," where they had to pass the night, 
and submit to the second trial. Guards were placed 
all round, to prevent the candidates from holding 
intercourse with the outer world. Then a lighted 
torch of pine wood and a cigar were given to each. 
These were not to be extinguished. Still they had to 
be returned whole at sunrise, when the officer in 
charge of the house came to demand them. Woe to 
him who allowed his torch and cigar to get con- 
sumed ! Terrible chastisements, death, even, awaited 
him. 

Having passed through this second trial success- 
fully, the third was to be suffered in the " House of 
Spears." There, they had to produce four pots of 
certain rare flowers, without communicating with 
any one outside, or bringing them at the time of 
their coming; and had also to defend themselves, 
during a whole night, against the attacks of the best 
spearmen, selected for the purpose, one for each 
candidate. Coming out victorious at dawn, they 
were judged worthy of the fourth trial. This con- 
sisted in being shut for a whole night in the "Ice 
house," where the cold was intense. They had to 
prevent themselves from being overcome by the cold 
and frozen to death. 

The fifth ordeal was not less terrible. It consisted 



44 SACRED 3IYSTEBIE8 AMONG 

in passing a night in company with wild tigers, in 
the "Tiger house," exposed to be torn to pieces, 
or devoured ahve, by the ferocious animals. Emerg- 
ing safe from the den, they had to submit to their 
sixth trial in the " Fiery house." This was a burn- 
ing furnace where they had to remain from sunset 
to sunrise. Coming out unscorched, they were ready 
for the seventh trial, said to be the most severe of 
all, in the ' ' House of the bats. ' ' The sacred book 
tells us it was the house of Camazotz, the ' ' God of 
the bats," full of death-dealing weapons, where the 
God himself, coming from on high, appeared to the 
candidates and beheaded them, if off their guard. 

Do not these initiations vividly recall to mind what 
Henoch said he saw in his visions ? That blazing 
house of crystal, burning hot and icy cold^ — that 
place where were the bow of fire, the quiver of 
arrows, the sword of fire — that other where he had 
to cross the babbling stream, and the river of fire— 
and those extremities of the Earth full of aU kinds 
of huge beasts and birds — or the habitation where 
appeared one of great glory sitting upon the orb of 
the sun — and, lastly, does not the tamarind tree in 
the midst of the earth, that he was told was the 
Tree of Knowledge, find its simile in the calabash 
tree, in the middle of the road where those of Xibal- 
ba placed the head of Hunhun Ahpu, after sacrific- 
ing him for having failed to support the first trial of 



-C)h^ 




W. KURTZ. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 45 

the initiation ? Even the title []=]] /\ [p = V V 
Hacli-mac, "the true, the very man," of the high 
priest in Mayax, that we see over the bust of High 
Pontiff, prince Cay Canchi, son of King Can at Ux- 
mal, recalls that of the chief of the Magi at Babylon. 
These were the awful ordeals that the candidates 
for initiation into the sacred mysteries had to pass 
through in Xibalba. Do they not seem an exact 
counterpart of what happened, in a milder form at 
the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries ? and 
also the greater mysteries of Egypt, from which 
these were copied ? Does not the recital of what the 
candidates to the mysteries in Xibalba were required 
to know, before being admitted, in order to distin- 
guish the wooden statue pointed out to them as the 
King from the veiled Brothers ; to avoid seating them- 
selves on a burning hot stone seat: to keep lighted 
the torch and cigar and prevent them from being 
consumed; to produce the flowers asked from them 
while isolated from the world in a guarded chamber; 
to defend themselves from the attacks of dexterous 
spearmen; to protect themselves against the intense 
cold of the "Icehouse;" to remain unhurt amidst 
wild tigers; or unscorched in the middle of a burn- 
ing furnace ; recall to mind the wonderful similar 
feats said to be performed by the Mahatmas, the 
Brothers in India, and of several of the passages 
of the book of Daniel, who had been initiated to the 



46 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

mysteries of the Chaldeans or Magi which, accord- 
ing to Eubulus were divided into three classes or 
genera, the highest being the most learned ? 

Will it be said that the mysteries were imported 
from Egypt or Chaldea or India, or Phoenicia to 
America ? Then I will ask when ? By whom ? What 
facts can be adduced to sustain such assertion ? Why 
should the words with which the priest at the con- 
clusion of the ceremonies in the Eleusinian mysteries, 
and the Brahmins at the end of their religious cere- 
monies, dismiss the assistants, be Maya instead of 
Greek or Sanscrit words ? Is it not probable that 
the dismissal continued to be uttered in the language 
of those who first instituted and taught the cere- 
monies and rites of the mysteries to the others ? 
That sacred mysteries have existed in America from 
times immemorial, there can be no doubt. Even 
setting aside the proofs of their existence, that we 
gather from the monuments of Uxmal, and the 
description of the trials of initiation related in the 
sacred book of the Quiches, we find vestiges of them 
in various other countries of the Western Continent. 

Garcilasso de la Vega informs us that in Peru, it 
was iUicit for any one not belonging to the nobihfcy 
to acquire learning. There again, as in Egypt, in 
Chaldea, Etruria, India, Mayax, science was the 
privilege of the priests and kings. The sacerdotal 
class held the pre-eminence. Sacerdotal orders were 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 47 

conferred only upon young men who had given 
proofs of sufficiency for such important office; 
and before they could be received into the Society 
of the Amautas or wise men, which was considered 
a great honor, they had to submit to very severe 
ordeals. The rites and ceremonies of initiation were . 
imported in Peru by the ancestors of Manco Capac, 
the founder of the Inca dynasty, who were colonists 
from Central America, as we learn from an unpub- 
lished MS., widtten by a Jesuit father, Eev. AneUo 
OUva, at the beginning of the year 1631, in Lima; 
and now in the library of the British Museum in 
London. The name Quichua, of the general lan- 
guage of Peru, points directly to the Quiches as the 
branch of the Maya nation that carried civihzation 
to that country. 

If from South America we go to New Mexico, 
there we find the Zunis, and other Pueblo Indians. 
Having preserved their independence by shaking off 
at an early period the yoke of the Spaniards, they 
have been little influenced, if at all, by the civiliza- 
tion of the Europeans, and live to-day as their ances- 
tors did many centuries back; preserving with gi'eat 
care, not only the purity of their language, which 
they teach their children to speak correctly, but their 
customs, traditions, and ancient reUgious rites and 
observances. 

Mr. Frank Gushing, who was commissioned by 



48 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, to 
make a study of their customs and manners, has 
been adojDted by the tribe, and has now become one 
of their most influential chiefs. Among the many 
interesting things discovered by him, not the least 
is the existence of twelve sacred orders, with their 
priests, their initiations, their sacred rites, as 
carefully guarded as the secrets of the ancient 
sacred mysteries to which they bear great re- 
semblance. He has been initiated into many of 
them, having had to submit to ordeals almost 
as severe as those of Xibalba from which no 
doubt they are derived, having been brought among 
them by Maya colonists and afterward Nahualt 
invaders. The Nahualts invaded and for a long 
time held sway over Mexico and some of the 
northern portions of Central America. The abori- 
gines of those countries at last expelled them from 
their territories, when they scattered in all directions, 
about the beginning of the Christian era. Some 
reached as far north as the gulf of California and 
Arizona. The Yaqui Indians, neighbors of the 
Mayos, and who inhabit the countries watered by 
the rivers Yaqui and Mayo in Sonora, are descen- 
dants of a Nahualt tribe, from which in all proba- 
bility, the adjoining nations, the inhabitants of the 
seven cities of Cibola, the Zunis among them, learned 
many of their reMgious practices; and the institution 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 49 

of the tiuelve sacred orders, that recall the twelve 
priests who presided at the initiation into the sacred 
mysteries at Xibalba. 

Seeking for the origin of the institution of the 
sacred mysteries, of which Masonry seems to be the 
great-grandchild , following their vestiges from coun- 
try to country, we have been brought over the vast 
expanse of the blue sea, to this western continent, 
to these mysterious "Lands of the West" where 
the souls of all good men, the Egyptians believed, 
dwelt among the blessed. It is, therefore, in that 
country, where Osiris was said to reign supreme, that 
we may expect to find the true signification of the 
symbols held sacred by the initiates in all countries, 
in all times, and which have reached us, through 
the long vista of ages, still surrounded by the veil, 
well-nigh impenetrable, of mystery woven round 
them by their inventors. My long researches among 
the ruins of the ancient temples and palaces of the 
Mayas, have been rewarded by learning at the foun- 
tain-head the esoteric meaning of some at least of 
the symbols, the interpretation of which has puz- 
zled many a wise head — the origin of the mystifi- 
cation and symbolism of the numbers 3, 5, and 7. 

Whoever has read history knows that in all 
nations, civilized as well as uncivilized, from the re- 
motest antiquity, the priests have claimed learning 

as the privilege of their caste, bestowed upon them 
4 



50 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

by special favor of the Euling Spirit of the universe. 
For this reason they have zealously kept fi-om the 
gaze of other men their intellectual treasures, and 
surrounded them with the veil of mystery. They 
have carefully hid all their discoveries, scientific or 
artistic, under the cover of symbols, reserving their 
esoteric or secret meaning for the initiated; giving to 
the people only such exoteric or pubhc explanation 
of them as best suited their purpose. They put into 
practice the principle, that "It was necessary to 
keep the discoveries of the philosophers in the works 
of art or nature from those unworthy of knowing 
them," enunciated by the erudite and celebrated 
English monk Koger Bacon, one of the most learned 
men of his time, who was confined during many 
years in a prison ceU by his ignorant brethren on 
account of his great erudition. This same principle 
is yet closely adhered to by the Brahmins, the Bud- 
dhist priests of Thibet, the Adepts of India, and I 
might add the Jesuits among the Christians, al- 
though they are very inferior in knowledge to the 
others; the secrecy they have observed for centu- 
ries, and do stiU observe, being their best guarantee 
of power and honor. 

Judging from the numerous devices and emblems 
that formed the ornamentation of the temples and 
palaces in the ancient ruined cities of Yucatan, the 
priests of Mayax seem to have been as addicted to 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 51 

symbology as their congeners in India, Egypt, Chal- 
dea and other countries. Among these devices and 
symbols, several belong clearly to their sacred mys- 
teries. 

The study of the relics of ancient Maya civiliza- 
tion has made manifest to my mind the source of 
many of the primitive traditions of mankind, v/hich 
have reached us through the sacred books of the 
Hindoos, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and the 
Jews. These, having received them from both the 
Chaldees and the Egyptians, have consigned the re- 
lation in the Pentateuch a book long attributed to 
Moses, but now beheved by Matthew Hemy and 
other commentators, who pride themselves upon 
their orthodoxy, to have been written in times sub- 
sequent to the foundation of the Hebrew monarchy. 
Might it not be possible that, in Mayax also, could 
be found the origm of the mystification of the num- 
bers 3, 5, and 7, regarded as mystic by all civihzed 
nations of antiquity all over the earth ? 

Surely this mystification must have originated 
with one of these nations and been carried to the 
others either by colonists, missionaries, or travelers. 
It is not admissible, or even presumable, that the 
same idea and mysticism has been attached to these 
numbers by all these different peoples without being 
communicated from one to another. Such abstruse 
speculations respecting the ontological properties of 



52 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

numbers can not be ascribed to the first workings 
of the human mind in its incipient steps toward in- 
tellectual development. In its awakening, human 
intellect, still unable to comprehend the causes of the 
natural phenomena that take place, as everyday- 
occurrences, in the material existence of man, does 
not soar in the elevated regions of metaphysics or 
of philosophical and abstract theories. Do we not 
see, even in our midst, that men who hve in igno- 
rance ascribe the manifestations of the powers of 
nature to unseen, mighty beings, of whom they con- 
tinually stand in awe; to whom they tribute homage, 
and address prayers filled with the superstitious 
fears that these fancies of their untutored imagina- 
tion inspire in them ? Abstract conceptions, numeri- 
cal combinations, metaphysical speculations, philos- 
ophical hypothesis, are productions of highly culti- 
vated intelhgences, of minds accustomed to reason 
on causes and effects, to deduce things unseen from, 
things seen. 

The mysticism with which these numbers have 
been invested, their symbolization in the sacred mys- 
teries, must have had its origin in material causes, 
palpable to physical senses, the memory of which 
became lost in the course of ages, altered by being 
transported among peoples living far away from 
the nation that conceived the idea, by passing from 
mouth to mouth, in the secrecy of initiations, genera- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 53 

tion after generation. The idea of a sole and om- 
nipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have 
been the universal belief in early ages, among all the 
nations that had reached a high degree of civiKza- 
tion. This was the doctrine of the Egyptian priests. 
They called the Divine InteUigence Kneph, and 
placed him above and apart from the Triads. 
Damascius, an eclectic philosopher, who taught in 
the schools of Athens, about the year 526 of the 
Christian era, in his "Treatise on Principles," says 
that " they asserted nothing of the first principle of 
all things, but celebrated it as a thrice unknown 
darkness, transcending all intellectual perception." 
Proclus, platonic philosopher, director of the school 
of Athens in 4,50 after Christ, says: " the Demiurgos 
or Creator is triple, and the three intellects are the 
three kings, he who exists, he who possesses, he 
who beholds. These three intellects, therefore, he 
supposes to be the Demiurge; the same as the three 
kings of Plato, and as the three whom Orpheus cele- 
brates under the names of Phaenes, Ouranos, and 
Kronos, kings of the great " Saturnian continent," 
in the Atlantic ocean. 

In Chaldea, the twin sister of Egypt, daughter of 
Poseidon, king of the '' Lands beyond the sea " and 
Lybia, we find that notwithstanding the apparent 
polytheistic character which, from the earhest times, 
rehgion had assumed, it was possible for the priests 



54 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

and learned men, if we give credence to Pythagoras, 
Democritus, and other philosophers, to account by 
esoteric explanation for the multiplicity of their 
gods, resolving them into the powers of nature, thus 
reconciling the whole scheme with monotheism. 
In fact, above and apart from the personages which 
peopled their Pantheon and were reverenced with 
equal respect by kings and people, they recognized 
a superior deity, Ea, so far removed from their first 
triad, that they did not know how to worship it. 
The meaning of the name Ra seems to have been 
unknown to the historians. They only assert that 
it means God emphatically; but its origin still re- 
mains a mystery. In Egypt they gave that name 
to the " Sun " particularly, as the fount of aU things, 
the life-giver and sustainer of all that exists on 
earth. La, in the Maya language, means ' ' that 
which has existed forever. The eternal truth." 

So it is evident that the ancient Chaldeans recog- 
nized a supreme being, a divine essence, Ba, to which 
the Triads were subordinate. 

The same conceptions about Deity existed in India 
from the remotest antiquity. H. T. Colebrooke, in 
his notice on "the Sacred Books of the Hindoos" 
says: "In the last part of the Niroukta, dedicated 
exclusively to the divinities, it is thrice affirmed that 
there are only three gods; and that these three gods 
designate one sole deity. The gods are three only, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 55 

whose mansions are the Earth, the intermediate re- 
gions and heavens; that is the fire, the air, and the 
sun; but Pradjapati, the Lord of all creatures, is 
their collective God. In fact there is but one God, 
the "great Soul" Maha-atma. It is called the 
"Sun," because the sun is the soul of all beings, of 
aU that moves, and of all that does not move. The 
other gods are only parts or fractions of his person. 
The behef in a Triune God has also existed from very 
early ages among the Chinese philosophers. Lo-pi, a 
Chinese writer, who flourished toward the eleventh 
century of the Christian era, dui'ing the Songs dy- 
nasty, explaining certain passages of the Hi-Tse, 
says: That the " Great Term," is " the Great Unit " 
and the great Y. That the Y has neither body or 
shape. That aU that has body and shape was made 
by that which has no body or shape. Tradition re- 
counts that the " Great Term " or the " Great Unit " 
comprehends three; that one is three and three are 
one. 

Hiu-Chin, who lived under the dynasty of the 
Hans, is the author of a Chinese dictionary called 
Choueven in which he has preserved many ancient 
traditions. He wrote about the beginning of the 
Christian era. Explaining the character Y he says: 
In the first beginning reason subsisted in unity. 
Eeason made and divided Heaven and Earth; con- 
verted and perfected aU things. And Tao-Tse, a con- 



56 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

temporary of Confucius, who wrote the Tao-te-King, 
a book reputed very profound, said more than five 
hundred years before Christ: "That reason, Tao, 
produced one. That one produced two, that both 
produced three; and that three had produced all 
things." All early writers who have given an ac- 
count of the religion of the ancient Peruvians, tell 
us that they worshij)ed a mighty unseen being who 
they believed had created all things, for which rea- 
son they called him Pacha-camac. He, being incom- 
prehensible, they did not represent under any shape 
or figure, although they raised a magnificent temple 
in his honor on the sea coast that rivaled in wealth 
and splendor those dedicated to the Sun at Titicaca 
and Cuzco. We are also informed that He stood at 
the head of a trinity composed of Himself — Pacha- 
camac — Con — and Uiracoclia. 

In this conception of a Supreme Being, Creator of 
all things, we see reflected the teachings of the Popol- 
vuh, Sacred book of the Quiches, in which we read, 
" that an that exists is the work of Tzakol — the Crea- 
tor — who by his will caused the Universe to spring 
into existence, and whose names are Bitol — the 
maker — Alom — the engenderer — Qaholom — He who 
gives being. 

The fact that the same doctrine of a Supreme 
Deity composed of three parts distinct from each 
other, yet forming one, was universally prevalent 



THE MAYAS AND THE QXHCHES. 57 

among the civilized nations of America, Asia and 
the Egyptians, natui^ally leads to the inference that 
at some time or other, communications and rela- 
tions more or less intimate have existed between 
them. They must, then, have imparted their tra- 
ditions, meta]3hysical speculations, and intellectual 
attainments one to another. 

In fact, all historians agree with Philostratus 
and admit that commercial intercourse did exist be- 
tween Egypt and India. Nay more, Eusebius asserts 
that in the reign of Memnon, king of Ethiopia, a 
body of Ethiopians from the countries about the 
Indus river migrated and settled in the valley of the 
Nile. And the many Chinese bottles, with inscrip- 
tions in that language, found in the tombs of Thebes, 
prove, beyond the least doubt, that communications 
have existed between the inhabitants of China and 
the Egyptians in times very remote, as is conject- 
ured from the inferior quality of the bottles, that 
some seem to beheve were manufactm^ed before the 
art of making objects of porcelain reached the high 
degree of perfection to which it attained afterward. 

On the other hand, the vase with Chinese inscrip- 
tions found by Dr. Schhemann in the lowest stratum 
of his excavations at Hissarlik, inscriptions that Avere 
partly deciphered by the eminent indianist Mr. Emile 
Burnouf and afterward thoroughly interpreted by 
the great Chinese scholar Fi-Fangpao, when am- 



58 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

bassador at Berlin, and proved to mention the 
fact of the vase having contained samples of Chinese 
gauze, shows that active commercial intercourse was 
carried on by the Chinese with Greece and Asia 
Minor even before the siege of Troy. 

These conceptions concerning the Triune Grod 
have come down through the vista of ages, to the 
present day, preserved in the works of the philoso- 
phers, and are still held sacred by many among 
Christians and Brahmins. But we do not learn from 
their sacred books where, when or how said doctrine 
originated. Whatever may have been the source 
from which it sprang, it is certain that the priests 
and learned men of Egypt, Chaldea, India, or China, 
if they still knew the true history of its origin at 
the time they wrote, kept it a profound secret, and 
imparted it only to a few select among those initiated 
in the sacred mysteries. 

We need not seek for information among the 
fathers of the Christian Church, for they are as silent 
as the tomb on the subject. They admitted into 
their tenets the notion of a Triune God as taught by 
the pagan philosophers, and appropriated it, as they 
have many other of their teachings and theories, 
without knowing, without inquiring, concerning 
their origin. The councils pronounced them revela- 
tions from on high; unfathomable mysteries not to 
be investigated; and imposed them as dogmas, to be 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 59 

implicitly believed, with blind faith, as they are 
to-day, by the followers of the Komish Church. 
Through their adherents the idea of the three per- 
sons in the Godhead has found its way into Free 
Masonry, and on the columns that adorn the temple, 
in the working of one of the degrees, we read these 
inscriptions: ""In the name of the holy and indivisi- 
hle Trinity;'' and further down, ''■We have the 
happiness to diuell in the pacific unity of the sacred 
numbers. 

To those initiated to the lesser mysteries the doc- 
trine was presented under the garb of the comph- 
cated metaphysical speculations with which it has 
reached us. Such explanations of the symbolical na- 
ture of the mystic numbers were given to them so as 
to make it well-nigh impossible to obtain a fair under- 
standing of their purport. By the perusal of the 
extracts just quoted it is easy to see that all the 
reasonings concerning the mystic value of number 3 
and its relations to a Supreme Deity are mere 
fancies of the imagination, vague speculations, 
fallacious cavils; meaningless for practical and in- 
quiring minds. So far as explaining the nature of 
the Deity all philosophers agree m admitting that 
it transcends the intelligence of man since man 
is finite; and what is finite will never be able to 
comprehend that which is infinite. 

Some of the Greek philosophers reflected in their 



60 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

teachings, as well as in their writings, the doctrines 
they had learned from their teachers, the priests 
of Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes. From them 
we may gather a glimmer of dim light pointing 
toward the origin of the symbolization of the num- 
bers. We have said that Proclus asserts that the 
three component parts of the triple deity were three 
intellects or three Kings — a fact corroborated by 
Plato, who also had been admitted to the mysteries, 
and by Orpheus, who celebrated these three Kings, 
in the ceremonies instituted by him, that He"rodotus 
says were identical with the Egyptian mysteries. 

Pythagoras, who had received his knowledge of 
the numbers and their meaning from the Egyptians, 
taught his disciples that God was number and har- 
mony. He caused them to honor numbers and 
geometrical diagrams with the names of the gods. 
The Egyptians likened nature to the equilateral tri- 
angle, the most perfect and beautiful of all triangles; 
and according to Servius, assigned the perfect num- 
ber 3 to the great God. 

The Chaldees symbolized the Eusoph or great hght, 
by an equilateral triangle; and in the Sri-Santara or 
cosmogonical diagram of the Hindoos, which has 
served as model for many of their temples, the name- 
less, the great Aum that dwells in the infinite, is fig- 
ured as an equilateral triangle. The Egyptians held 
the equilateral triangle as the symbol of " Nature " 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 61 

beautiful and fruitful. In the hieroglyphs it was 
the emblem of worship. We see, over the main 
altar, in aU the ancient CathoHc churches, the repre- 
sentation of an equilateral triangle containing the 
all-seeing eye of Osiris, as symbol of Deity. The 
same emblem is familiar also to those who visit 
masonic lodges as one under which is figured the 
" Great Architect of the Universe." 

If from those countries that we have been accus- 
tomed to consider as the " Old World," and guided 
by the three words of dismissal used by the Brah- 
mins, and the officiating priests of Eleusis, at the 
closing of their religious ceremonies, words we have 
shown to belong to the Maya language , we carry 
our inquiries into the "Lands of the West," there 
again we will find that the triangle was also sym- 
bohcal among the Mayas and their neighbors. 

We see it in the position of the three semispheres 
carved, as already said, at each end of the north- 
ern chamber of the building above the sanctu- 
ary at Uxmal. We next meet with it in the tri- 
angular arches that form the ceilings of the apart- 
ments in all the temples and palaces, in fact in aR 
the edifices of Mayax, as weU as in those of Palenque 
and other localities of Central America. 

The general plan of these edifices is the same 
everywhere; not because they were built by the 
same architects, or at the same period, but because 



62 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

their construction was in accordance with certain 
teachings pertaining to the mysteries. In all the 
buildings, whatever their size, the ground plan was 
in the shape of an oblong square i | , that is of 
their letter M, pronounced Ma. Ma is the contrac- 
tion of Mam, the ancestor, as they denominated the 
Earth, and by extension the Universe. Ma is also 
the radical of Ma-yax, the name of the Yucatecan 
peninsula, in ancient times, whose shape, no doubt, 
suggested that of the letter M, both to the Mayas 
and to the Egyptians. In fact, in Egypt and in 
Mayax, the figure i { in the hieroglyphs, stands 
for Earth and Universe. It ■will be noticed by ex- 
amining their plans, that this was also the shape 
of the apartments in the temples and palaces of 
Chaldea, of Egypt and Greece; that of the tombs of 
the Etruscans; hence, no doubt, was assigned to 
the masonic lodges in our days. 

The triangular ceiling in those countries, and 
there is no reason for doubting that it was the same 
in the " Lands of the West," was symbolical of the 
Triune God, the Euling Spirit of the Universe, sup- 
posed to reside in the heavens, above all things. 
(This accounts for the constellations of the firma- 
ment being represented on the ceilings). 

According to Zoroaster, He is the fire, the sun, the 
light; that the later Platonists have described as 
power, intellect, soul, or spirit; and the ancient 




MOSS TYPE, 



WO=;s ENG CO N Y 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 63 

theologians, who invoked the sun in their mysteries, 
according to Macrobius, as power of the world, 
hght of the world, spirit of the world; that Plutarch 
gives as intelligence, matter, kosmos, beauty, order, 
the world; of these three he says, " universal nature 
may be considered to be made up, and there is rea- 
son to conclude that the Egyptians were wont to 
liken this nature to what they called the most beau- 
tiful and perfect triangle." 

It wiU be noticed that the geometrical figure 
formed at the ends of each of these apartments, by 
the lines of the ceihngs, sides, and floor, is a penta- 
gon, symbol of the mystic number 5 whose 
name, penta, in Greek also conveys the idea 
of Universe; whilst Ho in Maya, meaning 5, 
is also the radical of Hool, the head, hence 
the Deity. 

Then, lastly, the number of planes forming the 
rooms — the two of the ceihngs, the two of the sides, 
the two of the ends, and that of the floor — seven 
in all, shows conclusively not only why the builders 
adopted the triangular arch instead of the circular, 
but also tliat the plan of their buildings was con- 
ceived in strict adherence to the mystic numbers 3, 
5, 7, or their multiples, as we see by the height of 
the pyramids; the number of courses of the stones 
forming the walls; that of the terraces on which the 
temples stood; that of the degrees of the stairs by 
which they were reached. 




64 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

Only two edifices of different construction have 
been found among the ancient cities of the Mayas. 
One, now completely ruined, having been shat- 
tered by a thunderbolt in 1848, was in Mayapan. 
That place was destroyed, according to Bishop 
Landa, in the year 1446 of the Christian era, by the 
lords and nobles of the country, to put an end to the 
dynasty of the Cocomes that governed with tyran- 
nical rule. The other, still standing, although much 
injured by the action of time and vegetation, is to 
be seen in the most ancient city of Chichen. These 
buildings were consecrated to the study of astrono- 
my; no doubt also to the performance of certain 
rehgious ceremonies connected with the worship of 
the smi, moon, and other celestial bodies. They 
were circular; their ground plan formed three con- 
centric circles representing the Zodiac, and their 
vertical section, in its general outlines, conveys to 
the mind that, in their inward or esoteric construc- 
tion placed before the eyes of the masses yet hidden 
from them, the architect wished to represent the 
figure of the mastodon, which was venerated by the 
people as image of Deity on Earth — probably because 
this pachyderm was the largest and most powerful 
creature that lived in the land. 

Among the ornaments which beautified one of 
the seven turrets that adorned the south facade of 
the north wing of the ancient palace of King Can, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 65 

and were dedicated to each of the seven members 
composing his family, on that set apart to com- 
memorate the name of his eldest son Cay (Fish), the 
high pontiff, are seen these symbols: 





Fig. 1. Fig. 3. 

My knowledge of the symbols and sacred charac- 
ters used by the learned priests of Mayax, in the 
mural inscriptions and ornaments of their temples 
and palaces, enables me to understand their exoteric 
meaning. The first (Fig. 1) is composed of an equi- 
lateral triangle with the apex downward; through 
it passes a ribbon tied in a knot. The triangle seems 
here to represent the whole country, the " Lands of 
the West," composed of three great continents, 
"North and South America " of to-day, and "the 
great island," called Atlantis by Plato, that disap- 
peared in the midst of an awful cataclysm, under 
the waves of the ocean, as described by the author 
of the Troano MS., who thus confirms the account 
of it given by the priests of Egypt, to Solon. 

The ribbon tied in a knot would indicate that 

5 



66 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

the initiates, to whom the esoteric explanation 
of the symbol had been imparted, were bound to 
each other, to secrecy and to their oath. Its 
hidden meaning may have been that the equi- 
lateral triangle represented Deity ever watchful, 
always creating — Nature in which we move, and live 
and have our being, in which all things are bound. 

The second emblem (Fig. 2) seems to have belonged 
more particularly to the highest degree of the sacred 
mysteries, since we find it among other symbols 
sculptured on the slabs that formed the external 
casing of the mausoleum raised to the memory of 
the high pontiff Cay. This second emblem is also a 
ribbon, tied up so as to form three loops, each oc- 
cupying one angle of an oblong square, image of 
the Universe; the fourth angle being adorned with 
fiat folds, that are emblematic of Mayax the seat or 
head of the government, so arranged as to form the 
steps — 5 in number— of a throne. This accounts for 
their being placed at the upper angle. The three 
round loops are symbolical of the three great parts 
composing the " Lands of the West," that the Greek 
mythologists figured by the trident of Poseidon, 
their god of the sea. As to the sign O, in Mayax 
as in Egypt, it was meant to represent the sun. 
It was placed in the middle of the square simply to 
signify that as the sun was the centre of the uni- 
verse, the vivifying soul of aU things, so his repre- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 67 

sentative the " Child of the Sun,'''' the high priest, 
was the Hght that illumined the secrets of the sacred 
mysteries by his wisdom; and whose knowledge 
made him the fit ruler of the country. O Is also 
the fkst letter of the Maya and Egyptian alphabets, 
corresponding to our Latin letter A, initial of Ah, 
maya masculine article, denoting strength, power 
— Ah being likewise the first syllable of the word 
Ahau King. 

We know as yet too httle of the rehgious tenets 
of the ancient priesthood of Mayax, to venture upon 
an explanation. All we can assert positively is that 
number 7 was the particular appendage of the third 
degree of the mysteries. It was considered as en- 
dowed with great potentiality; was as Pythagoras 
says, the vehicle of life, containing soul and body. 

What motives may have induced the founders of 
the mysteries in Mayax to select the numbers 3, 5, 
7, as symbols of the various degrees into which they 
divided them, we can at present only surmise. It 
is probable that certain natural causes, or the com- 
memoration of important events which had taken 
place in the life of the nation, or in that of the 
family of the founders of the dynasty that governed 
it, suggested their adoption. The fact is that the 
seven members of that family were collectively 
symbolized by the emblem of the Ah-ac-Chapat 
or Seven Headed Serpent. It is difficult to prog- 



68 SACRED MYSTERIES AMOWG 

nosticate if we shall ever obtain an insight into the 
secret teachings of the Mayas, even if we had access 
to their libraries; for it is to be presumed that they 
did not confide them to the papyrus of their books. 

Landa, in his " Relation of the things of Yucatan, " 
says: " The sons or the nearest relatives succeeded to 
the high priest in his dignity; with him was the key 
of their sciences, and in that they most concerned 
themselves, because it was the priests who gave ad- 
vice to the lords and answered their queries. . . . 
It was the high priest who nominated the priests for 
cities or villages which had none, examined them as 
to their proficiency in sciences and ceremonies. He 
entrusted to them the things of their office, and 
bade them give good example to the people. The 
priests employed themselves in the service of the 
temple and in teaching their divers sciences, par- 
ticularly how to write the books that contained 
them. They taught the sons of the other priests 
and the younger sons of the princes who were sent 
to them in their childhood, if they saw them in- 
clined for that profession." 

In order to understand the explanation of the 
possible origin of the mystification of the numbers 
3, 5, and Y, it is necessary to know something of the 
people among whom it seems to have originated. 

If we start from the mouths of the Mississippi 
River and travel due south, across the Gulf of Mex- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 69 

ico, at a distance of exactly four hundred and eighty 
miles, we come to the northern coast of the Yuca- 
tecan Peninsula. Its north-easternmost point, Cape 
Catoche, is one hundred and twenty miles from 
Cape San Antonio, the western end of the island of 
Cuba. Yucatan divides the Gulf of Mexico from 
the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised between the 17° 
30' and 21° 50' of latitude north, and the 88° and 
91° of longitude west from the Greenwich me- 
ridian. Its length is, therefore, 260 miles from 
north to south, and its breadth 180 miles from east 
to west. The whole country is a fossiliferous lime- 
stone formation, elevated a few feet only above the 
sea; its maximum height in the interior being 
about 70 feet. Although its rocky surface, bare for 
the most part, is, in places only, covered with a few 
inches of tillable loam, formed by the detritus of the 
stones and the decomposition of vegetable matter, 
its soil is of surprising fertility. 

The whole country is now covered with weU-nigh 
impenetrable forests. A bird's eye view of it from 
the top of one of the lofty pyramids, that seem like 
light-houses in the midst of that ocean of foliage, 
impresses the beholder vdth the idea that he is look- 
ing on an immense sea of verdure having for boun- 
dary the horizon, and whose billows come to die, 
with gentle murmur, at the foot of the monument 
on which he stands. Not a hiU, not a hillock even. 



TO SACRED 3IYSTEBIES AMONG 

breaks the monotony of the landscape, which is only 
relieved by clusters of palm trees that loom here 
and there, as islets, above the dead green level. 

Anciently, this country, now well nigh depop- 
ulated, was thickly peopled by a highly civilized 
nation, if we are to judge by the great number of 
large cities whose ruins exist scattered in the midst 
of the forests throughout the country, and by the 
stupendous edifices, once upon a time temples of the 
gods, or palaces of the kings and priests, whose 
walls are covered with inscriptions, bas-reliefs, and 
other interesting sculptures that equal in beauty of 
design and masterly execution those of Egypt and 
Babylon. 

The author of the Troano MS. — a very ancient 
treatise on geology, one of the four known books 
which escaped destruction at the hands of Bishop 
Landa and other fanatical Catholic monks who 
accompanied the Spanish invaders, when, after a 
struggle of twenty years, they at last, in 1541, be- 
came masters of the country — tells us that anciently 
the peninsula was called May ax; that is, the primi- 
tive land, the terra firma. It gave its name to the 
whole empire of the Mayas, that comprised all the 
countries known to-day as Central America, from 
the isthmus of Darien on the south, to that of 
Tehuantepec on the north. The site of the govern- 
ment was at Uxmal; but the great emporium of 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 71 

their arts and sciences, the heart, consequently, of 
that marvellous civilization, was at Chichen-Itza; 
that became a vast metropolis. In its temples pil- 
grims from all parts came to worship, and even 
offer their own persons as a sacrifice to the Al- 
mighty, by throwing themselves into the sacred 
well from which the city took its name. There 
also came the wise men from afar, to consult the 
H-Menes, learned priests, whose college still exists. 
Among these foreigners, were bearded men whose 
features vividly recall those of the Assyrians of old, 
and the Afghans of to-day. 

From Chichen this great civilization seems to have 
extended its influence to the remotest parts of the 
Earth, and to have exercised its controlling power 
among far distant and heterogeneous nations. The 
fact is, that we meet with the name Maya in many 
countries of Asia, Africa, Europe, as well as of 
America, and always with the meaning of wisdom 
and power attached to it. Wherever we find it, 
there also are found vestiges of the language, of the 
customs, of the religion, of the cosmogonical and 
historical traditions of the people of Mayax. Many 
of these traditions have been recorded in the sacred 
books of various nations and have come to be 
regarded as the primitive history of mankind. To 
quote a few instances. The creation of the world, 
according to their conceptions, is sculptured, and 



•^2 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

forms an interesting tableau over the door- way, on 
the east fagacle of the palace at Chichen-Itza. 

It might serve as illustration for the relation of 
the creation, as we read of it at the beginning of 
the first chapter of the Manava Dharma Sastra, or 
ordinances of Menu; a book compiled, says the 
celebrated indianist, H. T. Colebrooke, about 1300 
years before the Christian era, and from other and 
more ancient works of the Brahmins. Said relation 
completed, however, by the narrative of the myth 
according to the Egyptians as told by Eusebius in 
his work Evangelical Preparations. 

Effectively, in the tableau we see represented a 
luminous egg, emitting rays, and floating in the 
midst of the waters where it had been deposited by 
the Supreme Intelligence. In that egg is seated the 
Creator, his body painted blue, his loins surrounded 
by a girdle; he holds a sceptre in his left hand; his 
head is adorned with a plume of feathers; he is sur- 
rounded by a serpent, symbol of the Universe. 

Porphyrins, speaking of Jupiter, the Creator in 
the Orphic mysteries, says, "the philosophers, that 
is the initiated, represented him as a man, seated, 
aUuding to his immutable essence ; the upper 
part of the body naked, because it is in its upper 
portions (in the skies) that the Universe is seen most 
uncovered; clothed from the waist heloiv because the 
terrestrial things are those most hidden from view. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 73 

He holds a sceptre in his left hand because the 
heart is on that side, and the heart is the seat of 
understanding that regulates all the actions of 
man." And again, " the Egyptians call Kneph the 
intelligence, or creative power. {Kneph, or be it 
Kaneh, seems a cognate of can-hel, a Maya word 
the meaning of which is serpent (dragon) ; they say 
that this god threw from his mouth an egg in 
which was produced another god called Phtha, 
{TJiah is another Maya word, it means the worker 
— hence the Maker, the Creator); and Eusebius as- 
serts, "That they represented Kneph, or the Effi- 
cient Cause, as a man of a blue color, with a girdle 
round his loins, a sceptre in his hand, a crown on 
his head, adorned with a plume of feathers; and 
that emblematically they figured him under the 
form of a serpent. ' ' 

Will any one with common sense pretend that 
these conceptions concerning the Creator, we find 
not only identical, but expressed in Mke manner 
and with the same symbols, by the philosophers 
of India, of Egypt, and of Mayax, are mere coinci- 
dences ? If they are not the result of hazard, they 
must have been conceived by the wise men of one 
of these countries, that, no doubt, in which the 
civilization was the oldest, and communicated to 
others; these, in turn, taught them to their neigh- 
bors, as we know the Egyptians did to the Greeks. 



74 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

Again, we read in Genesis that at a very early- 
period in man's history, a certain man murdered his 
brother through jealousy. The victim we are told 
was named Abel, his murderer Cain. 

No doubt the writer of the book simply re- 
peated the story he had learned from the Egyptian 
priests, concerning the murder of Osiris {in whose 
honor the mysteries were instituted), by his brother 
Set, through jealousy; making such alterations in 
his narration as not to divulge the secrets he had 
sworn to keep. 

If any of those initiated to the higher mysteries 
were stiU acquainted with the true history of the 
murder, they kept it a profound secret; and only 
gave of it such exoteric explanations as best suited 
their purpose. Very httle can be learned from the 
ancient historians. Herodotus always excuses him- 
self from speaking on the subject; although he as- 
serts he is well acquainted with what pertained to 
the mysteries: and what we gather from the book of 
Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, is a version invented 
to satisfy the initiates of the lower degrees. In it 
Osiris is represented as having become the culture 
hero of Egypt. After ascending the throne, having 
taught his subjects the arts of civilization, he under- 
took an expedition from Egypt, in order to visit and 
dispense the same benefits to the different countries 
of the world. He left his wife and sister Isis in 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 75 

charge of the affairs of the kingdom which she ad- 
ministered aided by the counsels of her friend and 
preceptor Thoth. Isis, being extremely vigilant, 
Set, her other brother, had no opportunity for mak- 
ing innovations in the government. Still he desired 
to sit on the throne. After the return of Osiris, he 
conspired against him and persuaded seventy-two 
other persons to join with him in the conspiracy, 
together Avith a certain queen of Ethiopia named 
Aso who happened to be in Egypt at the time. He 
invited his unsuspecting brother to a banquet, and 
caused a beautiful chest to be brought into the ban- 
queting-room. It was much admired by all. He 
then, as if in jest, offered to give it to the person it 
fitted best. All tried getting into it one after an- 
other, but it did not fit any as well as Osiris when 
he in turn laid himself down in it. Then Set, aided 
by the conspirators, closed the lid and fastened it on 
the outside with nails. 

This story of a brother being slain at the request of 
another brother, through jealousy, is also related in 
Valmiki's ancient Sanscrit poem, the "Ramayana." 
We are not informed by the author from where he 
obtained it; but the victim was called Bali, and 
Maya is represented as being his enemy. The reci- 
tal of this event being identical with that archived 
in the sculptures and mural paintings still existing 
on the walls of certain edifices at Chichen-Itza, and 



76 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

with the account of it recorded in the second part of 
the Troano MS. would seem to indicate that the re- 
lation of the fratricide was brought to India by some 
Maya traveler or missionary ; or maybe by the colo- 
nists from Mayax that Valmiki tells us took posses- 
sion of and settled, in very remote ages, in the coun- 
tries, at the aouth of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, 
known to-day as Df^kkan. They, of course, brought 
to their new home with the language and customs, 
the civilization, traditions, and folk-lore from the 
mother country. Among these the tradition that, 
in very ancient times, the son of one of their primi- 
tive rulers murdered his brother through jealousy, 
in order to possess himself of his wife, with whom he 
had faUen in love, and of the reins of the govern- 
ment. 

In the inflated style of the Hindoo poets Valmiki 
recounts the murder of Bali. The story is as fol- 
lows. There were two princes named Bali and Sou- 
griva, sons of a king of the Monkey nation. After 
the death of their father, Bali the eldest was called 
to the throne, being elected sole monarch and su- 
preme lord by the people. A terrible feud had 
originated between Bali and Maya on account of a 
woman they both coveted. Maya challenged Bali to 
mortal combat and aUured him into an ambush. 
Bah not returning after a time was beheved to have 
succumbed, and his brother Sougriva ascended the 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 77 

throne. Bali returned however, and finding his 
brother installed in his place accused him of treason 
in the council of the nobles and before the people. 
He charged him with causing the news of his death 
to be circulated in order to usurp the reins of the 
government. Then he banished him from court, 
sent him adrift without means, depriving him of his 
home, his wife and his social position. 

Sougrivamet Kama; besought his help to avenge 
his wrongs. Having received his promise to kill 
Bah, strong in the protection of such an ally, he 
challenged his brother to mortal combat, although 
he knew that alone he was not a match for him. 
During the encounter that ensued, Eama who was 
present, seeing that Sougriva was being badly- 
beaten, sent an arrow through the breast of Bali 
and killed him. The last word of that prince to his 
slayer who was standing by him, were: "What 
glory dost thou expect to reap from the death thou 
hast given me whilst I was not even looking toward 
thee ? Hidden thou hast wounded me in a coward- 
ly manner while my attention was engrossed in 
that duel." And so Bali ivas treacherously slain. 

We learn from the sculptures and mural paintings 
that adorn the walls of the palaces at Chichen-Itza 
and Uxmal that king Can (Serpent) the founder, or 
maybe the restorer, of these ancient cities, had three 
sons whose names were Cay (Fish), Aac (Turtle), 



78 SACRED JMYSTERIES AMONG 

and CoTi (Leopard), and two daughters, Moo (Ma- 
caw), and Nicte (Flower). 

It was the law among the Mayas that the young- 
est of the brothers should marry the eldest of the sis- 
ters to insure the legitimate and divine descent of 
the royal family. This same custom of princes of 
royal blood marrying their sisters existed among 
the Egyptians from the earliest days, and it became 
in after times general; such alliance being consid- 
ered fortunate. It also prevailed with the Ethio- 
pians, the Greeks, those of Mesopotamia in the time 
of the patriarchs, the Peruvians, and many other na- 
tions. Prince Coh was a brave and successful war- 
rior; at the head of his followers, whom he had often 
led to victory, he had conquered many nations and 
greatly added to the glory and extent of the Maya 
empire. Being the youngest of the brothers, he was 
the one who had to marry Moo, the eldest of the 
sisters. She, on her part, loved him dearly and was 
proud of his exploits. After the death of King Can, 
their father, the country was parcelled among his 
children. Moo became the queen of Chichen, and 
many of the lords swore allegiance to her. After 
her death she received the honors of apotheosis; 
became the goddess of iire, and was worshiped 
in a magnificent temple, built on the summit of a 
high and very extensive pyramid whose ruins are 
still to be seen in the city of Izamal. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 79 

Aac, the second son of king Can, was also in love 
with her. To his lot had fallen the ancient metrop- 
ohs Uxmal, "the three times rebuilt." His head- 
less and legless statue is still to be seen over the main 
entrance on the f agade of the palace known as the 
*' House of the Governor," at that place. The flay- 
ed bodies of his two brothers and his eldest sister are 
at his feet ; their heads hang from the belt round his 
waist : and the ruins of his private residence, orna- 
mented v^th turtles, — his totem — yet exist at the 
northwest corner of the second of the three ter- 
races on which the palace is built. The law of the 
land and her own predilection for Coh were insur- 
mountable barriers that prevented Aac from mar- 
rying Moo. He was not a warrior but a com^tier. 
He spent his hfe in idleness amidst pleasures and 
frivolities. Still he was envious of the fame won by 
his younger brother ; jealous of him because of the 
love of the people, and still more of that of his 
sister and wife. He allowed his evil passions to gain 
the mastery over his better feelings. He incited a 
conspiration against the friends of his childhood, 
vdth the object of killing his own brother, to obtain 
forcible possession of the sister he so much coveted, 
seize the reins of the government, and become the 
supreme lord of the whole enipire. 

In the carvings on the wooden lintels over the en- 
trance of Coh's funereal chamber, in the paintings 



80 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

that adorn its walls, and in which that part of the life 
of the personages concerned in these events is por- 
trayed, Aac is represented full of wrath, holding 
three spears in his hand, engaged in a terrible alter- 
cation with Coh. From the sculptures that adorned 
his mausoleum we learn that he was murdered 
treacherously by being stabbed with a spear three 
times in the back; and the author of the Troano 
MS. in giving an account of that murder and its 
consequences, has recorded this fact and illustrated 
it in the first section of plate xiv., in the second 
part of his work. [When I disinterred his statue, I 
found in an urn his heart, partially cremated, and the 
flint head of the spear with which he was slain.] In 
one of the tableaux of the mural paintings the body 
of Coh, surrounded by his wife, his sister Nicte, his 
children and his mother, is being prepared for crema- 
tion; the heart and other viscera having been ex- 
tracted to be preserved in urns. A similar custom 
prevailed among the Egyptians of high rank whose 
bodies were embalmed according to the most expen- 
sive process. The internal parts of the body having 
been removed, were cleansed, embalmed in spices 
and various substances, then deposited in four vases 
that were placed in the tomb \\ith the coffin. 

At the death of Coh the whole country became 
involved in a civil war. The conspirators, partisans 
of Aac, striving to seize the reins of the government, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 81 

the friends of Prince Coh fighting to avenge his 
death and in defense of their queen. The goddess 
of war favored at times one party, then the other. 
Aac, in order to obtain the preponderance, had re- 
course to diplomacy. He renewed his suit for the 
hand of his sister. He sent messengers to her, with 
a present of fruits, -begging her to accept his love 
now that she was free. The scene is vividly pictured 
in the mural paintings. 

Queen Moo is represented seated in her house situ- 
ated in the middle of a garden. At her feet, but 
outside of the house to indicate that she does not 
accept it, is a basket full of oranges. Her extended 
left hand shows that she declines to listen to the mes- 
senger who stands before her in an entreating posture, 
and that she scorns the love of Aac who is seen on 
a lower plane, making an obeisance. Over his head is 
a serpent, typical of his name, Can, looking as lov- 
ingly as a serpent can be made to look, at a Macaw 
perched on the top of a tree and above the figure of 
the queen whose totem it is. The tree is guarded by 
a monkey in a threatening attitude. This monkey 
here, as in Egypt the cynoceiDhalus, is the emblem 
of the preceptor of Moo, symbol therefor of wisdom. 

This tableau is most interesting and significant, 
since in it we have a natural explanation of the 
myth of the temptation of the woman by the ser- 
pent. Here we have the garden, the woman, the 
6 



83 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

temptor, and the fruit. "The story of this family 
incident passing from mouth to mouth, from gener- 
ation to generation, from country to country, has be- 
come disfigured probably by peoples that did not 
hold woman in as high esteem, or did not honor her 
as much as the Mayas did. Perhaps, also, an old 
misanthropical bachelor, hater of the fair sex, wrote 
a distorted account of the tradition out of spite at 
having been jilted by his lady-love, and his version 
was accepted by the author of Genesis, if he 
himself did not make the alteration. The fact is 
that the author of the Troano MS. — (Plate xvii., 
part second) as the artist who painted the scene 
just described — asserts that she refused to listen 
to Aac's entreaties, in consequence of which the 
civil war continued. At last Moo and her fol- 
lowers succumbed. She fell into the hands of Aac 
who, after ill-treating her, put her to death together 
v^ith Cay the high pontiff, his elder brother, who 
had sided with the queen of Chichen, with right and 
justice. In token of his victory, Aac caused his 
statue — the feet resting on the flayed bodies of his 
kin, their heads being suspended from his belt — to 
be placed over the main entrance of the royal pal- 
ace at Uxmal, where, as I have said, its remains 
may be seen to-day 

I may add here in explanation of the tableau of 
the scene in the garden, that the present of a basket 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 83 

of oranges was the offer of marriage made by Aac 
to Moo. It is usual with the aborigines of Yucatan, 
that yet retain many of the customs of their fore- 
fathers, when a young man wishes to propose mar- 
riage to a gui to send by a friend as a present, a fruit, 
or flower, or sweetmeat. The acceptance of the pres- 
ent is the sign that the proposal of the suitor is ad- 
mitted, and from that moment they are betrothed; 
whilst the refusal of the present means that he 
is rejected. A similar custom exists in Japan. Wlien 
a young lady expects a proposal of marriage a con- 
venient flower-pot is placed in a handy position on 
the window-sill. The lover plants a flower in it. If 
next morning the flower is watered he can present 
himself to his lady-love knowing that he is wel- 
come. If on the contrary, the flower has been up- 
rooted and thrown on the side-walk, he well under- 
stands he is not wanted. 

The family name of the kings of Mayax was Can 
(serpent) as Klian is still the title of the Kings of 
Tartary and Burmah, and of the governor of pro- 
vinces in Persia, Afghanistan and other countries in 
Central Asia. Can was therefore the family name 
of Aac. The meaning of the writer of Genesis when 
he says that the serpent spoke to the woman and se- 
duced her with a fruit is now easily understood. 

The account of the fratricide in Genesis, in the 
Eamayana, or in the papyri of Egypt, is nothing 



84 SACRED 3IY8TERIES AMONG 

more or less, with a slight variance, than the story of 
the feuds of king Can's children. This story, treas- 
ured by the priests of Egypt and India, consigned in 
their sacred books and poems, has been handed down 
to us among the primitive traditions of mankind. 

Nowhere, except in Mayax, do we find it as form- 
ing part of the history of the nation. Nowhere, ex- 
cept in Mayax, do we find the portraits of the actors 
in the tragedy. There, we not only see their portraits 
carved in bas-rehefs, on stone or wood, or their 
marble statues in the round, or represented in the 
mural paintings that adorn the walls of the funereal 
chamber built to the memory of the victim, but we 
discover the ornaments they wore, the weapons they 
used, nay, more, their mortal remains. 

The following is the certificate of Charles 0. 
Thompson, Principal and Professor of Chemistry at 
the Worcester Free Institute, who made the chemi- 
cal analysis of part of the cremated remains found in 
the stone urn that was near the chest of the statue 
that occupied the centre of the mausoleum raised to 
the memory of the famous warrior Coh, twenty 
feet below the upper j)lane of the monument. 

Worcester, Mass., Sept. 25, 1880. 

'^Stephen Salisbury, Jr., Esq., submits an un- 
' ' known solid for qualitative examination. 

" Under microscope it presents a certain compact- 
"ness and horny aspect characteristic of animal 




iVIObo TYPh, 



MOSS ENG CO N Y 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 85 

"matter which has been charred m a close vessel, 
*'it loses 9 per cent, when dried at 100° and 9 per 
"cent, more by combustion. After calcination, 
"a dross and residue remains which contains 3 per 
' ' cent, f enic oxide, a httle alumina and much silica. 
"Warm water exposed to action of residue shows 
"traces of potash and soda. 

" These results are consistent with the theory that 
"the mass was once part of a human body which 
"has been bm^ned with some fuel." 

"Charles O. Thompson." 

There is a fact certainly worthy of notice, and this 
is that the names of the personages mentioned in 
the various accounts of the fratricide are precisely 
identical, or are words having the same signification. 
May not that be regarded as unimpeachable proof 
that they all refer to the same event ? 

No one who has any knowledge of philology will 
ever deny that A-bel — A-bal — Bal-i — Balam are 
identical words. 

A, contraction of Ah, is the Maya mascuhne arti- 
cle, the. Bal is the radical of '^dlam. Balam is for 
the superstitious aborigines, even to-day, the Yumil 
Kaax — the "Lord of the fields" the " LeojjarcV^ 
which they also call Coh — the totem of the victim of 
Aac is the leopard — and it is so represented in the 
bas-rehefs and sculptures. 

In Egypt, the spotted skin of the leopard, usually 
without the head, but sometimes with it, was al- 



SACRED 3IYSTER1ES AMONG 





ways suspended near the images and statues of 
Osiris. The skin of a leopard was worn as a mantle 

over the ceremonial dress 
of his priests. Besides, 
when represented as King 
of the Amenti — of the 
' ' West" — the symbol of 
Osiris was always a crouch- 
i n g leopard .^^jv, 
with an open 
eye over it. 

We must not lose sight of the fact that the leop- 
ard's skin worn by Nimrod and Bacchus was a sacred 
appendage to the Mysteries. It was used in the 
Eleusinian as weU as in the Egyptian mysteries in- 
stituted in honor of Osiris. It is mentioned in the 
earliest speculations by the Brahmins on the mean- 
ing of their sacrificial prayers the Aytareya Brah- 
mana, and is used in the agnishtoma the initiation 
rites of the Soma mysteries. When the neophyte 
is to be born again he is covered with a "leopard 
skin," out of which he emerges as from his mother's 
womb. A leopard skin is worn by the African war- 
riors, who are so fortunate as to possess one, as a 
charm to render them invulnerable to spears ac- 
cording to the French traveler Paul du Chaillu. It 
would seem as if the manner in which Coh met his 
death, by being stabbed with a spear, had been known 




W. KURTZ. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 87 

to their ancestors, and that they imagined that 
Tv^earing his totem would save them from being 
womided with the same kind of weapon used in kill- 
ing him. That the inhabitants of Africa had com- 
munications with those of the Western Continent 
there can be no doubt, since populations of black 
people existed on the isthmus of Panama and other 
locahties at the time of the first arrival of the Span- 
iards; besides their pictures can be seen in the mural 
paintings at Chichen. 

As to the name Osir, or be it Ozil, it would seem 
to be a nickname given to Coh on account of the 
great love his sisters, and the people in general, pro- 
fessed for him. Ozil is a Maya verb that means to 
desire vehemently. He, therefore, who was very 
much desired — dearly beloved. 

Osiris in Egypt, Ahel in Chaldea, Bali in India, 
are myths. Coh, in Mayax, is a reaUty — a warrior 
whose mausoleum I have opened; whose weapons 
and jade ornaments are in my possession; whose 
heart I have found, and a piece of which was ana- 
lyzed by Professor Thompson; whose statue, with 
his name inscribed on the tablets occupying the 
place of the ears, I have unearthed, and which is 
now in the National Museum in the City of Mexico, 
one of the most precious relics in that institution, 
having been robbed from me, by force of arms, by 
the Mexican authorities. 



88 



SACRED MYSTERIES A3I0NG 



Isis was the wife and sister of Osiris. The word 
Isis may simply be a dialectical mode of pronounc- 
ing the Maya word ioin (idzin) the younger sister. 
Her headgear, as a goddess, was a vulture. That 
bird was her totem and the peculiar type of mater- 
nity. Isis was often called the great mother-goddess 
Mau; a word certainly as suggestive of the name 




Moo, sister and wife of Coh and queen of Chichen, 
as the vulture is of the Macaiv. It must not be 
forgotten that one of the titles of Isis was the 
royal wife and sister. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 89 

Authors, who of course know nothing of the facts 
in the ancient history of Mayax, revealed to me by 
the sculptures and the mural paintings of the tem- 
ples and palaces of the Mayas, and contained in the 
pages of the Troano MS., do not believe that Osiris 
and his sister Isis were deified persons who had lived 
on earth, but fabulous beings, whose history was 
founded on metaphysical speculations, and adapted 
to certain phenomena of nature. But the primitive 
rulers of the Mayas, whose history is an exact 
counterpart of that of the children of Seb and Nut, 
were deified after their death and worshiped as 
gods of the elements. My object is Jiot here to en- 
ter into long explanations on these historical 
disclosures. I refer the reader who wishes to know 
more of the subject to my work, "The Monuments 
of Mayax and their Historical Teachings." 

As to the names Cain, Set, Sougriva, Aac, they 
all convey the idea of something belonging to or 
having affinity vdth water. 

Cain, by apocope, gives Cay, the Maya word for 
"fish." 

Set is a cognate word of the Maya Ze, to ill-treat 
with blows. Can a name be more appropriate to 
designate one who has killed his brother with three 
thrusts of his spear; and his sister by kicking her to 
death, as Aac is represented doing by the author of 
the Troano MS.? 



90 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

Set, after being treated with the same honor as the 
other members of the family of Seb, came to be re- 
garded as the Evil principle and was called Nubti, 
that is, according to the Maya language, the adver- 
sary, from nup adversary and ti for. He also was 
the Sun God, the enemy of the serpent. Here again 
we have a most singular resemblance, to say the 
least. Aac, in the sculptures of Mayax, is always 
pictured surrounded by the sun as his protecting 
genius; while the serpent, emblem of the country, 
always shields Coh and his sister- wife within its 
folds. The escutcheon of the city of Uxmal shows 
that the title of that metropolis was the " Land of 
the Sun." In the bas-rehefs of the queen's chamber 
at Chichen, the followers of Aac are seen to render 
homage to the Sun; the friends of Moo to the ser- 
pent. So in Mayax as in Egypt, the Sun and the 
Serpent were inimical. In Egypt this enmity was a 
myth; in Mayax a dire reality. 

The hippopotamus and the crocodile were emblems 
of Set. Plutarch says ''that at Hermopolis there 
"was a statue of Set, which was a hippopotamus 
"with a hawk upon its back fighting with a serpent." 
Both the hippopotamus and the crocodile are am- 
phibious animals, having consequently much affin- 
ity with water. 

Aac, in Maya, is the name for the turtle, also an 
amphibious animal. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 91 

The name Sougriva, of the brother of Bali, is a 
word composed of three Maya primitives, zuc, lib, ha, 
zuc, quiet, tranquil; lib, to ascend, and ha, water — 
"He who tranquilly rises on the water" as the 
turtle does. 

The universal deluge is another tradition of the 
early days that was credited by certain civilized na- 
tions of antiquity. 

The Egyptian priests who, from times immemo- 
rial, had kept in the archives of the temples a 
faithful account of all events worthy of being re- 
membered, derided the Greek philosophers when 
they spoke of the deluge of DeucaHon and the de- 
struction of the human race. Their answer was 
that as they had been preserved from it the inun- 
dation could not have been universal; they even 
added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching 
so much importance to that event, as there had 
been several other local catastrophes resembling it. 
They told Solon that the greatest cataclysm on 
record in their books was that during which Atlan- 
tis disappeared under the waves of the ocean, in 
one day and night, in consequence of violent earth- 
quakes and volcanic eruptions; that from that 
time all communications between their people and 
the inhabitants of the "Lands of the West " had 
become interrupted; the occurrence having taken 
place 9,000 years before his visit to Egypt. 



93 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

An account of that fearful event was also pre- 
served by the learned men of Mayax who give of it 
a description identical with that given by the Egyp- 
tians. Nearly all the nations living on the western 
continent have kept the tradition of it, but they do 
not pretend that all mankind was destroyed. 

In Mayax the learned priests caused a relation of 
it to be carved in intaglio on the stone that forms 
the lintel over the interior doorway in the rooms on 
the south side of their college. The building is 
known to this day by the name of Akah-oih, the 
dark, or terrible writing. 

The author of the Troano MS., a work, I have al- 
ready said, on geology, dedicates several pages at 
the beginning of the second part to the recital of 
that fearful cataclysm, and the phenomena which 
then took place. This leaves no longer room for 
doubting that a large continent existed in the middle 
of the Atlantic ocean, and which was destroyed with- 
in the memory of man; and that the narrative by 
Plato of the submersion of Atlantis is, in the main, 
correct. The Maya author represents the lost land 
by the figure of a black man with red hps, which 
would imply that it was mostly inhabited by a race 
of black men. In this case, the presence of black- 
skinned populations on the Western continent, an- 
terior to the advent of the Spaniards, would be 
easily accounted for. The Mayas like the Egyp- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 93 

tians, represented the world as an old man. Plu- 
tarch says they called East the face, North the 
right side, South the left side; this conception has 
reached our days, only we reckon the East as the 
right hand. West the left. North the face. 

When the author of the Troano MS., speaks of the 
' ' Master of the land ' ' par excellence, that is king Can 
deified, he pictures him sometimes with a human 
body, painted blue, and the head of a mastodon. 
On the fagade of the building at Chichen Itza 
called by the natives Kuna, the house of God, to 
which Stephens, in his work on Yucatan, gives the 
name of Iglesia, is a tableau representing the wor- 
ship of that great pachyderm, whose head, with its 
trunk, forms the principal ornament of the temples 
and palaces built by the members of king Can's 
family. 

This tableau is composed of a face intended for 
that of the mastodon. Over the trunk and between 
the eyes formerly existed a human head, which has 
been destroyed by mahgnant hands. It wore a 
royal crown. This is still in place. On the front 
of it is a small portrait cut in the round of some 
very ancient personage. On each side of the head 
are square niches containing each two now head- 
less statues, a male and a female; they are seated, 
not Indian fashion, squatting, but with the legs 
crossed and doubled under them, in a worshiping 



94 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

attitude. Each carries a symbol on their back; 
totem of the nation or tribe by which the mastodon 
was held sacred. Under these figures, are two tri- 
angles >^%. emblems of offerings and worship in 
Mayax as in Eygpt. So also was the other symbol 
image of a honey-comb, an oblation most 
grateful to the gods, since with the bark of the 
Balche tree, honey formed the principal ingredient 
of Balche, that beverage so pleasing to their palate: 
the same that under the name of nectar, Hehe 
served to the inhabitants of Olympus. It is the 
Amrita, still enjoyed, on the day of the full moon, 
by the gods, the manes and the saints, according to 
the Hindoos; although it was the cause of the war 
between the gods and the Titans, and is the origin 
of many sanguinary quarrels among the tribes of 
equatorial Africa even in our days. 

These symbols leave no doubt as to the fact that 
the personages represented by the statues are in the 
act of worshiping the mastodon. 

The corona of the upper cornice, that above the 
mastodon's head, is formed of a peculiar wavy 
adornment often met with in the ornamentation of 
the monuments erected by the Cans. Emblematic 
of the serpent, it is composed of two letters iV" jux- 
taposed, monogram of Can ^^. The corona of 
the lower cornice is made of two characters r_p~L, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 95 

that read in Maya Ah oam, He of the throne — the 
monarch. 

In Japan the seven members of the Can family, 
deified and figured by the same symbols as in 
Mayax, are worshiped to-day in the shrine of the 
palace at Tokio, dedicated to the goddess symbo- 
lized by a bird. This goddess calls to mind the god- 
dess Moo of the Mayas, or Isis of the Egyptians. 
In the upper part of the shrine, over and above 
aU the other attendants who have wings and 
beaked noses, is seen an elephant couchant, the 
god of fire standing on his back. In the midst 
of the flames that surround him is the head of a 
bird. So in Chichen we see the followers of queen 
Moo, who, we are informed by the author of the 
Troano MS. became the goddess of fire, carrying 
her totem, a bird, in their head-gears. 

The Japanese claim to be offspring of the gods, 
and produce two different genealogical tables in 
support of their assertion. These gods amounting 
to seven, are said to have reigned an almost incalcu- 
lable number of years in the country; although 
they assert that these primitive gods were spiritual 
substances, incorporeal. They were succeeded by 
five terrestrial spirits, or deified heroes, after whom 
appeared the Japanese themselves. 

Here again we have a reminiscence, as it were, 
of the twelve gods, that the Egyptians told Hero- 



96 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

dotus, had governed their country, an incalculable 
number of years, before the reign of Menes their 
first terrestrial king. These gods were converted 
by the Greeks into the twelve deities, dwellers of the 
Olympus. The twelve serpent heads, brought to 
hght by me in December, 1883, from the cen- 
ter of the mausoleum of the high-pontiff Cay, at 
Chichen-Itza, are emblematic of the twelve rulers, 
who had reigned in Mayax in times anterior to the 
great cataclysm when Atlantis was submerged; 
whose portraits, with the sign cimi, dead, adorn the 
east f agade of the palace with the tableau of creation, 
showing that they existed in very early times. Of 
these rulers we again find a dim tradition in China 
in the Tchi, also caUed che-cull-tse — the tivelve chil- 
dren of the emperor of Heaven, Tien-Hoang, who 
had the body of a serpent. Each of these Tclii are 
said to have lived eighteen thousand years, and to 
have reigned in times anterior to Ti-lioang, sover- 
eign of the country in the middle of the land. 

From this short digression let us return to the 
yvorship of the mastodon which we find very 
prevalent in India in that of the elephant Ganesha, 
the god of prudence, of wisdom, of letters, repre- 
sented as a red colored man with the head of an 
elephant. He is invoked by the Hindoos of aU sects 
at the outset of any business. No one would dream 
of writing a letter or a book without previously 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. ^■^7 

saluting Ganesha. His image is seen at the cross- 
ing of the roads, oftentimes decorated with a gar- 
land of flowers, the offering of some pious devotee. 
Ai'chitects place it in the foundation of every edi- 
fice. It is sculptured or painted at the door of every 
house as a protection against evil; at one of the en- 
trances of every Hindoo city, that is called Ganesha- 
pol, as well as in some conspicuous door of the pal- 
ace. We have already seen that in the most ancient 
edifices of Mayax the mastodon's head with its 
trunk is the principal and most common ornament. 
Are these mere coincidences ? The name Ganesha- 
pol would be according to the Maya language, the 
head of Ganesha; pol, in Maya, being the head. If I 
wished to go further I might say that in Ganesha 
we have a dialectical pronounciation of Can-ex, 
' ' the serpents. ' ' No deity in the Hindoo pantheon is 
so often addressed; and his titles are so numerous 
that Uke Osiris it might be named Myrionymus 
" with ten thousand names." 

So many are the legends accounting for the ele- 
phant head, it may be safely assumed that its 
origin is miknown. May not its worship have 
been introduced in India, with many other cus- 
toms, that for instance of carrying the children 
astride on the hip; of printing an impression of the 
human hand, dipped in red hquid, on the waUs 

of the temples and other sacred buildings by devo- 

7 



98 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

tees etc. ; by colonists from Mayax where these cus- 
toms prevailed, and the worship of the mastodon 
was widely spread if not general? This surmise 
assumes the semblance of probability when we con- 
sider that the body of Ganesha is painted red, the 
color characteristic of the American race, and the 
symbol of nobihty of race among the Egyptians. 

The elephant was not among the animals wor- 
shiped by them. They do not seem to have been 
much acquainted with it. But the imprint of the 
red hand, so commonly seen on the walls of the 
temples of Mayax and India, has never been ob- 
served in the temples of Egypt; neither did the 
Egyptian women carry their children astride on their 
hip, as do stiU those of India and Yucatan, al- 
though many other customs were common to the 
people of these countries. It is probable that the 
colonists from the " Lands of the West " who set- 
tled in the valley of the Nile, replaced the worship 
of the mastodon, which did not exist in the country, 
by that of the buU, the largest and most useful of 
their domestic animals; and that this was the origin 
of their veneration for the buU Apis, as those 
who were initiated into the mysteries of Osiris 
weU knew, being told that Apis ought to be re- 
garded as a fair and beautiful image of their soul. 

From the remotest antiquity the serpent was 
held by every people in the greatest veneration as 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 99 

the embodiment of divine wisdom. We have al- 
ready said that Eusebius asserts that the Egyptians 
figured emblematically Kneph, the Creator, as a ser- 
pent; and that the Maya learned priests represented 
the engendered, the ancestor of all beings, in the 
sculptures, protected within the coils of the serpent. 
Mr. Stanyland Wake, in his book on the origin of 
the serpent worship writes: "the student of my- 
thology knows that certain ideas were associated by 
the people of antiquity with the serpent, and that 
it was the favorite symbol of peculiar deities; but 
why that animal rather than any other was chosen 
for that purpose is yet uncertain." 

The late Mr. James Fergusson in his work on 
" Serpent and Tree Worship," a work so full of eru- 
dition and interesting researches, whilst he conclu- 
sively shows that these worships were common to 
all civihzed and half civilized nations of antiquity, 
fails to indicate the country where they originated. 
All authors who have wiitten on the subject, admit 
that their origin is stiU an impenetrable mystery ; al- 
though they agree that they are so intimately con- 
nected as to make it impossible not to beUeve it 
must have been the same. 

The Hmited scope of this book does not aUow me 
to give the matter aU the space it deserves. I will 
therefore content myself, with bringing forth such 
facts as will conclusively show, at least to unpreju- 



100 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

diced minds, that the serpent and tree worship in- 
deed originated on this "Western continent," and 
from the same cause; "the love of the country," 
from the amor-patrioe, still so firmly rooted in the 
heart of the aborigines, that it is difficult to induce 
them to leave the spot where they are born, even to 
better their condition. Everywhere on the Eastern 
continents serpent worship is connected with myth- 
ological narratives, metaphysical speculations, or 
astronomical conceptions, far above the intellectual 
and scientific attainments of the mass of people 
among whom it prevailed. 

These were mere fictions invented by the priests 
and learned men, to conceal either the real facts, or 
may be, their own ignorance of them. Still, an- 
xious to maintain the preponderance and power that 
knowledge gave them over the multitudes, and hav- 
ing to satisfy their curiosity, they imagined such 
explanations as best suited the notions current in 
their times and the ideas of the people. 

In early days the serpent, emblem of Kneph, the 
Creator, was the agathodcemon, the good genius. It 
is still so regarded by the Chinese, who consider it 
one of their most beautiful symbols. Later, when 
it became emblematical of Set or Typho, the slayer 
of Osiris, it was looked upon with horror, as the 
evil principle, the destroyer, the enemy of man- 
kind. It has ever since continued to be so held by 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 101 

the Jews, the Christians, the Mahometans, in fact 
by all peoples whose rehgious tenets are founded on 
the Bible. If the tree and serpent were worshiped 
throughout the Eastern continents from the shores 
of the Atlantic ocean to those of the Pacific, from 
Scandinavia to Egypt and the Asiatic peninsulae, 
their worship was not less spread amongst the 
nations that inhabited the "Lands of the West." 
We find vestiges of it everywhere on the Western 
continent; from the banks of Brush creek, in 
Adams county, in the State of Ohio, where still ex- 
ists, on the crest of a mound, the effigy of a great 
serpent 700 feet long, entirely similar to that dis- 
covered by Mr. John S. Phene in Glen Feechan, 
Argyleshire, in Scotland, to the ancient city of Tia- 
huanuco, whose ruins are 13,500 feet above the 
level of the Pacific on the shores of lake Tiiicaca, 
near the frontier of Bolivia, on the high plateau 
of the Andes. There is yet to be seen a very re- 
markable doorway formed out of a single mono- 
hth 13 feet 5 inches long, Y feet high above the 
ground, and 18 inches thick. This monohth has 
attracted the attention of d'Orbigny and the other 
travelers who, hke myself, have been struck with 
astonishment by the beauty of the sculptures that 
adorn its south-eastern facade. Mayas, no doubt, 
were the miknown builders of that gi^eat city; since 
in the sculptures mentioned, we find, as in the tem- 



102 SACRED MYSTERIES A3I0NG 

pies of Japan, the totem of prince Coh, of his wife 
and sister Moo, and of their father king Can 
(serpent). 

I will make here a short digression in order to de- 
scribe these sculptures, that with the knowledge we 
possess to-day of the history of the founders of the 
principal ruined cities of Mayax, afford us another 
proof that the builders of that city of Tiahuanuco 
belonged to a then highly civihzed nation, which 
sent colonists to the remotest parts of the earth, 
as the English do to-day, and to whose historical 
annals may be traced many of the primitive tradi- 
tions of mankind. This city was already in ruins 
when Manco Capac laid the foundation of the Inca's 
emj)ire, and had been constructed by giants be- 
fore the sun shone in heaven, as the natives said 
to the Spaniards when questioned as to its an- 
tiquity. 

We have seen that the members of the family of 
king Can, are still worshiped in the temples of 
Japan, as of old they were in those of Egypt; we 
now meet unimpeachable records of them, carved 
on very ancient monuments, on the shores of lake 
Titicaca, at the foot of the great glaciers of Sorata 
and lUimani, as we have found them in mytho- 
logical lore of India and Greece. Will it be said 
that these are mere coincidences ? 

The front of this monolithic gate was once upon 




l.iOSS TYPE, 



MOSS ENG CO , N Y. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 103 

a time as highly pohshed as the material, trachite, 
will permit. The whole space above the doorway is 
divided into four bands about eight inches high. 
The lower band contains seventeen small heads, in 
low rehef, adorned in a somewhat similar manner 
to that of the central figure. Seven of these, those 
directly under that figure wear, like it, a badge that 
seems to be a plume composed of three feathers. 
These small heads are separated by grecques having 
macaw's heads at their salient sides; these grecques 
are the symbol of power and strength. In the 
ancient Maya and Egyptian alphabets the grecque 
is equivalent to our latin letter H. Ah is the Maya 
mascuHne article, and it conveys to the mind the 
idea of might and power; this, taken in connection 
with the macaw^s head, totem of Moo, the queen of 
Chichen, signifies the mighty, the powerful Moo. 

The other bands are divided into squares of the 
same size, except in the center over the doorway, 
where there is a figure 32 by 21 inches. 

Its head, the form of which is not only convention- 
al, as its square eyes and mouth indicate, but likewise 
emblematical, consists of three superposed layers in 
the shape of escutcheons, the uppermost of which 
is sculptured so as to represent a human face. 
These three escutcheons as the three feathers of the 
plume that adorns it, the triple throne on which the 
figure seems to stand, the three dots on each cheek. 



104 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

the three oblong squares on the breast-plate, the 
three macaw's heads at the extremities of the triple 
sceptre it holds in its hands, are symbolical of the 
three great western regions that the Egyptians 
designated by the generic name of ""^ Lands of the 
West'''' and represented by the character 



which is an image of the crown worn by some of 
the high chiefs in Mayax. That the central figure 





was meant to represent these countries, the sign 
that stands in lieu of the mouth, indicates. 



It is the letter M, pronounced Ma, of the Maya and 
Egyptian ancient alphabets. It is the radical of May- 
ax, name of the Maya empire. But Ma in Egypt as 
in Mayax, is a word that signifies land, country, and 
by extension universe; and in Mayax as in Egypt 
is one of the signs for land. 



The head is surrounded by rays divided into groups 
of four; four on the top, four on each side, and four 
on the under part. Each ray is terminated by a 
circle with a dot in the center O, a sign very often 
met with on the monuments of Mayax; particularly 
on the trunk of the mastodon's heads. It is the 
first letter of the ancient Maya and Egyptian alpha- 




















»:-^-v.-w:j^^=^-r>-.-at{j^gy;ra»yr v <w.- * -• »-- -J «<~'^:jC7P ai" ^» ^j^;-. " ^iM^ y i K-^ P 



THE iH.ir.4S' AND THE QUICHES. 105 

bets, and correspond to our letter A, the initial 
of the Maya word Aliau, king. This would indi- 
cate that the central figure was Hkewise symbolical 
of the king par excellence, ruler of the empire, 
whom the kneeling personages that surround it, are 
in the act of worshiping as shown, not only by 
their posture, but also by the sign ^, carved on 
the neck of the macaw-headed figures, the followers 
of the queen Moo (macaw), which again in Mayax 
as in Egypt is the symbol of offering, worship, 
and adoration. The name of this great king we 
read in the four heads of leopards, terminating the 
rays at the upper angles, and those in the middle 
on each side of the escutcheon, and in the four rays 
of each group. Translating these symbols by means 
of the Maya language, we find that Can Coli was 
the name of the potentate; and that he was a mem- 
ber of the Can family, rulers of Mayax. This fact 
is indicated by the serpent heads at the lower angles 
of the escutcheon, those at the extremities of the 
breast-plate, the four oblong squares carved on the 
ribbons that support it, and the number of rays 
forming each group round the head. 

In Maya four is can; but can also means serpent, 
hkewise power. Number /oiw' according to Pythag- 
oras, was particularly connected with Mercury, the 
TJioth of the Egyptians, as the deity who imparted 
intellectual gifts to man. The Tetraktus or number 



106 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

four represented the mystic name of the Creative 
Power; and in later times it meant intellect, wis- 
dom, all that is active. Pythagoras asks: "How 
do you count ? " Mercury: " one, two, three, four. " 
Pythagoras: " Do you not see that what are four to 
you are ten and our oath ? those (1, 2, 3, 4,) added 
together, forming ten, and four containing every 
number within it." The four leopard heads are his 
totem, Kancoh, Coh being leopard. Further on, 
I will refer more in detail to these personages, 
and to the role they have played in the civilization 
of the world, having been, and being still, wor- 
shiped in many countries under different names. 
The pecuHar shape of the sceptre held in the left 
hand of the figure, the upper part of which is bifur- 
cated, each end terminating with the head of a 
macaw, totem of the queen Moo of Chichen-Itza, sis- 
ter and wife of Coh, and its undulations, like those 
of a serpent in motion, seem intended as an emblem 
of the three great regions that composed the empire 
that is likewise portrayed in the three rows of kneel- 
ing winged personages. The upper portion of said 
sceptre is symbolical of the Western continent, di- 
vided into two great parts united by the Isthmus of 
Panama. The lower was meant to represent that 
extensive island that sunk beneath the waves of the 
Atlantic ocean, about 11,500 years ago. 
The sceptre held in the right hand of the central 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 107 

figure being whole, would show that the entire 
country was governed, by a potentate to whom the 
rulers of the seventeen nations, into which the em- 
pire was divided, paid homage and acknowledged 
as their suzerain. These seventeen divisions of the 
empire are indicated by the seventeen small heads 
sculptured on the lower band, and the seventeen 
signs of land that adorned the arms, the breast- 
plate, and the ribbon from which it is suspended. 

Of the small kneeling winged figures, those of the 
middle row are portrayed with the heads of macaws 
to signify that they are the particular adherents of 
queen Moo, that here, as in Mayax, carry her totem 
as a badge or sign of recognition; whilst the others 
have human heads, but wear on their crowns her 
totem, in token that they recognize her as their 
suzerain. All these figures are ornamented with 
tivelve serpents, arranged in groups of tliree, whilst 
the sash they carry across their body from the 
shoulder to the waist on the opposite side, termi- 
nates in a peculiar knot adorned v^th the four cir- 
cles, that we have said stood for the word Aliau, 
that is king, indicating that their lord paramount is 
a member of the Can (serpent) dynasty. The whole 
tableau recalls vividly, that presented by the kneel- 
ing beaked nosed personages in attendance at the 
■ ghrine of the bird deity at Kioto. 

Mr. Angrand, the well known French archseolo- 



108 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

gist, finds, and with reason, a coincidence between 
these sculptures and those of Central America, hav- 
ing a corresponding symbolical significance. In 
them he sees the proof of the identity of origin, of 
the intimate relationship of the builders of Tiahua- 
nuco and those of Palenque, Ocosingo, and Xochi- 
calco. He might have added, and be nearer to the 
truth, those of the cities of Mayax, that were 
founded many centuries before those mentioned by 
him. 

In Mayax, it is where, indeed, the image of the 
serpent, as a symbol, is most commonly met with. 
We see it on almost every edifice in every city. It 
is one of the favorite ornaments, especially at 
Chichen-Itza, of which place it seems to have been 
the particular protecting genius. There it is found 
everywhere. It guards the entrance of all pubhc 
edifices. It is at the foot of their grand stair- 
ways, as if defending the ascent. The columns 
that support their porticos are representations of 
it. Its head forms the base, its body the shaft. 
The nobles and other personages of high rank wore 
adornments made in the sliape of serpents. Chi- 
chen may indeed be caUed the " City of Serpents'''' 
par excellence. If we, therefore, wish to know the 
true meaning of the serpent as a symbol, if we de- 
sire to inquire as to the motives that led to its wor- 
ship, it is necessary to question the learned priests 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 109 

of that city; to consult the books in which the phi- 
losophers of Mayax have consigned their knowledge 
and their esoteric doctrines. 

The origin of the " Serpent Worship " they tell us, 
can be traced to two apparently distinct causes. 
One, the esoteric, taught only to a few select of 
those initiated in the greater mysteries, is the 
homage to be tributed by the creature to the Crea- 
tor. The other, the exoteric, inculcated on the un- 
initiated, was the love of the country, and the re- 
spect due by the subjects to their rulers, living 
images and vicars of the Deity on earth. 

In order to comprehend the first, or esoteric, we 
must recall to mind that Eusebius says that the 
Eygptians represented emblematically Kneph the 
Creator, and the world also, under the figure of a 
serpent, w^hich, Horapollo asserts, was of a blue 
color with yellow scales; but they fail to inform us 
as to what may have been their motives for thus 
symbohzing the First Cause; or from whom they 
had received this symbol, that was the same used by 
the Mayas. A clue to this mystery can no doubt 
be found in the cosmogonical notions prevalent 
among the ancient civilized nations; for, strange 
to say, they seem to have been ahke with all. 
We read in the Manava-dharma-sastra that the 
visible universe in the beginning was nothing but 
darkness. Then the great, self -existing Power dis- 



110 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

pelled that darkness, and appeared in all His splen- 
dor. He first j)roduced the waters; and on them 
moved Narayana the divine spirit. 

Berosus, recounting the ancient legend of the 
creation according to the Chaldeans, says: " In the 
beginning all was darkness and water; and therein 
were generated monstrous animals and strange and 
peculiar forms. , . A woman ruleth them all. " 
Her name in Chaldee is Thalath, in Greek Thalassa 
(the sea), that is in Maya Thallac (a thing without 
steadiness). 

Genesis recounts that: "In the beginning the 
Earth was without form and void; and darkness was 
upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the water. And God said, 
Let there be light and there was light." 

In Primander, that modern critics consider the 
most ancient and authentic of the first philosophical 
books of Egypt, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, 
in the dialogue between Thotli and Primander, the 
Supreme Intelligence, we read these words of ThotJi. 
" I had then before my eyes a most prodigious spec- 
tacle. All things had resolved themselves into 
light. A marvellous, pleasing and seducing sight it 
was to contemplate. It filled me with dehght. After 
a while a horrid shadow, which ended in oblique 
folds, and assumed a humid nature, agitated itself 
with terrific noise. From it escaped smoke with 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. HI 

uproar, and a voice was heard above the din. It 
seemed as the voice of the hght; and the verb came 
forth from that voice of hght; that verb was car- 
ried upon the humid principle. Out of it came 
forth the fire pure and hght, and rising, it was lost 
in the air that, spirit-hke, occupies the intermediate 
sj)ace between the water and the fire. The earth 
and the water were so mixed that the surface of the 
Earth covered by the water appeared nowhere." 

And in what are termed the modern Hermetic 
books, the origin of things is thus explained: " The 
principle of all things existing is God, and the intel- 
lect, and nature, and matter, and energy, and fate, 
and conclusion, and renovation. For there were 
boundless darkness in the abyss, and water, and a 
subtile spirit, intellectual in power, existing in 
chaos. But the holy hght broke forth, and the ele- 
ments were produced from among the sand of a 
watery essence." 

In the Popol- Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiches, 
we read: " This is the recital of how everything was 
without life, calm and silent, aU was motionless and 
quiet; void was the immensity of the heavens; the 
face of the Earth did not manifest itself yet; only 
the tranquil sea was, and the space of the heavens. 
All was immobihty and silence in the darkness, in 
the night; only the Creator, the Maker, the Domi- 
nator, the Serpent covered with feathers, they who 



113 SACRED 3IYSTERIES AMONG 

engender, they who create, were on the waters as an 
ever increasing hght. They are surrounded by green 
and blue, their name is Gucumatz." 

We have already said how the Maya sages have 
taken care to perpetuate their cosmogonical concep- 
tions, by causing the narrative of the creation to be 
carved, in high relief, over the doorway of the east 
fagade of the palace at Chichen-Itza, and that these 
conceptions were identical with those of the Hindoos 
and the Egyptians. It cannot be argued that this 
identity of ideas about the origin of things, arrived 
at by the wise men of India, Egypt, and Mayax, 
and expressed in as nearly the same words as the 
genius of the vernacular of these various countries 
admits, is purely accidental; or, that they have ar- 
rived separately at the same conclusions on the sub- 
ject, without communicating one with the other. 
The notion and its explanation must have originated 
with one, and been taught to the others just as our 
modern scientific discoveries, or religious beliefs, 
are carried from country to country, even the most 
remote, and made known to their inhabitants. 
What should we think of the man who would pre- 
tend that the railway, electric telegraph, and many 
other of the latest inventions, instead of having 
originated in one particular country, nay, more, in 
the brain of a particular man, have sprung simulta- 
neously among aU the various nations which make 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 113 

use of them ? Would not that man be regarded as 
a born idiot or a fit subject for a lunatic asylum ? 
We can easily understand how these cosmogonical 
notions have passed from the Egyptians to the 
Chaldees or to the Hindoos or vice versa; but who 
brought them to the "Lands of the West" and 
when ? Who can say they did not arise among the 
inhabitants of the " Western continent; " and were 
not conveyed by them to the other nations ? 

In my work "The Monuments of Mayax," I 
have shown how the legends accompanying the 
images of several of the Egyptian deities, when 
interpreted by means of the Maya language, point 
directly to Mayax as the birthplace of the Egyp- 
tian civilization. How the ancient Maya hieratic 
alphabet, discovered by me, is as near ahke to 
the ancient hieratic alphabet of the Egyptians 
as two alphabets can possibly be, forcing upon us 
the conclusion that the Mayas and the Egyptians 
either learned the art of writing from the same 
masters, or that the Egyptians learned it from the 
Mayas. There is every reason to believe that the 
cosmogonical conceptions, so widely spread, origi- 
nated with the Mayas, and were communicated by 
them to all the other nations among which we find 
their name. 

An analysis of the tableau of creation, carved on 
the fagade of the palace at Chichen-Itza, cannot fail. 



114 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

therefore, to prove interesting. In it we shall find, a 
proof of the scientific attainments of its designers; 
and also the reason why the serpent came to be 
worshiped all over the Earth. 

The. philosophers of Mayax must have known 
that the waters cover the greatest part of the globe 
(about three fifths); and that water being a com 
bination of gases (oxygen and hydrogen), the most 
subtile of fluids, must have been the first form of 
matter produced. This is why on each side and on 
the top of the tableau they placed the symbol of 

water ^^^vv^a!^; taking care to leave without it, 
/wvwv 

at the upper part, a portion equal to two-fifths of its 
length. In the midst of the waters they represented 
the figure of an egg, that is a germ. Why an egg 
and not any other seed ? Is it because their study 
of physiology had made them acquainted with 
the fact, that no being exists on Earth, but that is 
born from an egg ? They represented the egg emit- 
ting rays. The rays of the Hght into which says 
Thoth, all things resolved themselves; that, says 
the Quiche, author of the Popol-Vuh, appeared on 
the water as an increasing brightness that bathed 
the Creator, the feathered serpent, the Kneph, as 
the Egyptians would name it, in green and azure. 
It is well to notice that the symbols of water termi- 
nate with the head of serpents; because they com- 
pared the waves of the ocean to the undulations of 




MOSS TYPE, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 115 

the serpent's body while in motion. For this rea- 
son the Mayas named the sea Canah, the great, the 
powerful serpent: and in the Troano MS., the sea is 
always designated by a serpent's head. This ex- 
plains why the Quiches, the Mayas, the Egyptians, 
the Hindoos, represented the world, and, by exten- 
sion, the maker of it, as a serpent. Thus it is that 
they placed a serpent within the egg, behind the 
creator to indicate that this symbol is the totem of 
the ancestor of all beings. And here we have one 
of the origins of the serpent worship: that is, the 
adoration of the Creator. 

In Egypt the goddess Uati, the genius of the 
lower country, is at times represented as a serpent 
with inflated breast, the body standing erect over a 
basket or sieve, the lower part resting against a fig- 
ure resembhng our numeral 8. At times again, as 
a winged serpent, with inflated breast, wearing on 
its head a cap or crown of peculiar shape, that it 





Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 

is said to be the crown of lower Egypt. Why the 
Egyptians selected such symbols to represent the 
lower country, we are not informed; and it is doubt- 



116 



SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 



ful if the learned Egyptologists could explain the 
motive. 

Now it is a most remarkable fact, that these are 
the very symbols used by the Maya hierogramma- 
tists and artists to figure their own motherland, 
the Maya empire. 

The author of the Troano MS., sometimes pic- 
tures Mayax as a serpent with an inflated breast 
(Plate. XVII., Part II.), at other times as a serpent 
with part of the body bent in the shape of the Yuca- 
tan peninsula,* and the artists who executed the 




* An interpretation of the Maya legend explanatory of the il- 
lustration may not be amiss, inasmuch as it shows that the ser- 
peant was the symbol of the country. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. H"^' 

paintings in the funereal chamber of Prince Coh, 
typified the country as a winged serpent, with the 
back painted green, the belly yellow, wearing a 
blue crown on the head, its tail ending with a pecu- 
liar dart resembling in general contour the southern 
continent of America. 

This is not the place to give minute explanations 
of these symbols which I have considered in another 
work, I simply wish to consign here such facts as can- 
not be attributed altogether to hazard. So the pecu- 
liar twist against which rests the body of the serpent, 
emblem of the lower country, is exactly the same that 
forms the symbol /^^--nSJP^O ^sed in the Troano 
MS., to represent v c^^j^^ ^^jJ the gulf of Mexico 
and the Caribbean sea, whose waters bathe the 

Beginning at the top of the cohimn, it reads as follows: 

© @ ® © © 

Ahau Eb Kan cib Lamat 

A-ha-u Heb Kanaan cib Lam-a-ti 
that is literally: He-water-Basin turn abundant fluid submerge 

the land. 

Freely translated, 

The Master of the basin of water turns it: abundant fluid sub- 
merges the land. 

A glance at the illustration will suffice to show that the interpre- 
tation is correct. In my work "The Monuments of May ax," etc., 
I give a more complete explanation of it. 



118 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

peninsula of Yucatan, that seems as if standing 
erect between them as the serpent in the Egyptian 




sign. As to the sieve, it is called, by the natives of 
that country, Mayab. Mayab was, in past ages, 
one of the names of the peninsula. The crown 
of Lower Egypt ^ , is precisely that worn by 
certain chieftains, \^— i whose portraits we see in 
the bas-rehefs at ^A"^ Chichen-Itza. There the 
peak was worn in front; in Egypt at the back: may 
be as a mark of respect on the part of the Egyp- 
tians toward their mother country, to signify that 
as the child, Egypt must stand behind its parent, as 
it is customary for children to do among the aborig- 
ines of Yucatan. 

Since the Egyptians and the Mayas used iden- 
tical signs as symbols of the country hi which 
they hved, may it not be inferred that the same 
cause prompted their selection ? We must not lose 
sight of the fact that the winged serpents intro- 
duced into the paintings of Egypt, are merely em- 
blematic representations connected with the mys- 




MOSS TYPE, 



MOCS ENG. CO., N. Y 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 119 

terious rites of the dead, and the mode of being in 
Amenti; that is, in the "Lands of the West" 
where the souls of the departed were supposed to re- 
turn and exist, after being liberated from their 
mortal body. In early days Uati or Mati, the coun- 
try of Mayax, was one of the divinities, worshiped 
by the settlers on the banks of the Nile; and the 
asp, not any other snake, played a conspicuous part 
in the rehgious mysteries, and was universally 
honored. 

Here, again, we may ask why ? What possible 
relation can exist between the asp and the coun- 
try; between the asp and the office of king or 
the attributes of Deity ? Still it was the badge of 
royalty, worn as an ornament on the head-dress of 
kings and gods. Is the selection of the asp as a 
mark of distinction to be ascribed to a mere whim ? 
May not that predilection be assigned to the fact 
that, when angry, it dilates its breast; and when in 
that condition it recalled to the minds of the colo- 
nists, the geographical contours of the land of their 
forefathers in the West, and the way it was rep- 
resented in the books, from which they had studied 
in their childhood ? If we look at a map of the 
Western continent, it will be easy to perceive that 
the contours of Central America — that is the Maya 
empire of old — figure a serpent with an inflated 
breast, in a position similar to that of the em- 



120 



SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 



blem of lower Egypt (Figs. 1 and 2, p. 115.), the 
head being the peninsula of Yucatan, anciently 
the seat of the government; and that the south- 
ern continent would be the dart of its tail, as 
pictured by the Maya artists. The green color of 




its back, the verdant, tropical forests that cover the 
land; the yeUow belly, the internal volcanic fires, 
that cause the surface to wriggle like a serpent; the 
blue crown on its head, the blue canopy of heaven 
above; the wings, the smoke of the volcanoes; 
the fins, the high peaks of the chain of mountains 
that traverses the country from north to south, part 
of the Cordilleras, that are as the backbone of the 
continent. 
The intense love of their country is one of the 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 131 

most striking characteristics of the aborigines to 
the present day. That love may be said to 
amount to fanaticism. In it we find another ori- 
gin of the serpent worship, emblem of the mother- 
land. 

In the Serpent mantra, in the Aytareya Brah- 
mana, a passage speaks of the Earth as the Sarpa 
Rajni, the queen of the serpents, and the mother 
of aU that moves, still worshiped by the Mayas, 
dwellers in the vaUey of Cashmere. 

In Mayax the primitive rulers derived their title 
Can (serpent) from the shape of the contours of their 
empire, as the priests of the sun received theirs 
from the name Kin of that luminary. Their emblem 
however, was not a winged serpent, with a dart at 
the end of the tail, but a rattlesnake covered with 
feathers; image of the feathered mantle used by the 
king, the high-pontiff, and other high dignitaries, as 
ceremonial dress. This feathered rattlesnake adorns 
the walls of the royal mansions. It is seen at Ux- 
mal, on the east fagade of the west wing of king 
Can^s palace and at other places. After their death 
these rulers, images of Deity on earth, received 
the honors of apotheosis. They became gods and 
goddesses and were worshiped as such. In Assyria 
the symbol of the winged serpent was replaced by 
that of the winged circle, emblem of Asshur, the 
supreme deity of the Assyrians; and this symbol is 



122 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

seldom found in the sculptures except in imme- 
diate connection with the monarch. It seems to 
be also closely related with the sacred or symbohcal 
tree. 

Here again, is another origin of ' ' Serpent Wor- 
ship," in that of the kings of Mayax under the sym- 
bol of the " feathered serpent." One of the names 
for rattlesnake, in Maya, is Aliau-Can, the royal 
serpent. In the sculptures the king is often repre- 
sented by this emblem with seven rattles at the end 
of the tail; seven having been the number of the 
members of king Can^s family. In Egypt the kings 
and queens were honored as gods after their death. 
In Greece and other countries, the heroes were deified 
and worshiped as divinities. 

From aU antiquity and by all nations, the tree 
and serpent worship have been so closely identified, 
as to guarantee the inference that their origin is the 
same, although it seems difficult to comprehend 
what possible analogy may exist between them, 
without a knowledge of the place where they origi- 
nated, of the people that first instituted it, of their 
traditions and peculiar notions. Many learned stu- 
dents have pubhshed the results of their researches 
on the subject. None, however, has yet assigned a 
birthplace to the tree or serpent worship. 

The late Mr. James Fergusson tells us that he is 
inclined to beheve that it was in "the mud of 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 123 

the lower Euphrates, among a people of Turanian 
origin, and spread thence to every country of the 
old world." This is trul}^ indefinite. Then comes 
the query: what about the tree and serpent worship 
among the inhabitants of the Western continent ? 
For they also had their sacred trees; and with them 
as with the natives of the Eastern world, the tree 
was symbolical of eternal life. 

The oak tree was dedicated to Baal, the chief god 
of the Phoenicians and other eastern nations. Under 
it the Druids performed their most sacred rites in 
honor of CEseus, the Supreme Being. The ash was 
venerated by the Scandinavians. The inhabitants of 
the island of Delos believe the gigantic palm tree to 
be the favorite production of Latona. The people 
of Samos, Athens, Dodona, Arcadia, worshiped in 
sacred groves, as those of Canaan. In India the 
worship of the tree is of very ancient date, as in the 
island of Ceylon : in the courtyard of every monas- 
tery a bo-tree (ficus Indicus) is planted. Nowhere, 
however, do we find the origin of that worsliip 
mentioned. 

Mr. Fergusson advises us to look to the Egyp- 
tians, these being the most ancient civihzed people, 
for an explanation of it, averring that it undoubt- 
edly prevailed among them before the multifari- 
ous Theban pantheon was elaborated. In Egypt 
the tamarisk was the holy tree chosen to over- 



124 SACRED MYSTERIES A3I0NG 

shadow the supposed sepulchre of Osiris, the king 
of Amenti. The persea was sacred to Athor, the 
regent of the West, often identified -with Isis. The 
sycamore was consecrated to Nut, mother of Isis 
and Osiris, frequently represented in the paintings 
of the tombs, standing in its branches, pouring 
from a vase, a Uquid which the soul of the departed, 
under the form of a bird with a human head, catches 
in his hands. It is the water of eternal hfe. So 
the trees were particularly sacred to the deities con- 
nected with Amenti, that is, to the deified kings and 
queens from the " Lands of the West." 

We are told that the sacred tree was an emblem 
found in frequent association with the " winged cir- 
cle" in Assyria. As this symbol is always met 
with in immediate connection with the monarchs, it 
would seem that the worship of the tree bears a 
close relation to, if it is not typical of, that of the 
deified heroes and kings. 

To understand the relationship between the tree, 
the winged serpent or "circle" and the "mon- 
archs" it is again necessary to consult the annals 
left carved in stone or written in their books by the 
wise men of Mayax. From them we learn that 
the Mayas held certain trees sacred, Landa, Cogol- 
ludo, and other early writers tell us that, even as 
far down as the time of the Spanish conquest, the 
aborigines believed in the immortahty of the soul. 




MOSS TYPE 



MOS& ENG CO N Y 



* THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 125 

that would be rewarded or punished m the Hfe be- 
yond the grave, for its deeds whilst in the body. 
Their reward was to consist in dwelling in a delect- 
able place, where pain was unknown, where there 
would be an abundance of dehcious food, which they 
would enjoy, with eternal repose, in the cool shade 
beneath the evergreen and spreading branches of 
the yaxche (ceiba tree), which is found planted, 
even to-day, in front of the main entrance of the 
churches, throughout Yucatan and Central America. 
Sometimes the churches are built in the midst of 
groves of ceiba trees, that in some locahties are re- 
placed by the gigantic palm tree {Palma real). 

The Maya empire was of old, according to the au- 
thor of the Troano MS., figured as a tree, planted 
in the continent known to-day as South America, 
its principal branch being formed by the Yucatecan 
peninsula. (See map, page 120.) Here we have the 
key to the origin of the tree worship, and its intimate 
relation to the winged serpent and the king. It is 
again the worship of the country symbolized by a 
tree, as it also was by a serpent, or by the Ruler. 
Thus we find a natural explanation of the tradition 
current among the ancient nations, that the tree 
par excellence, the tree of hfe, that is of civiHzation, 
of knowledge, was placed in the middle of the land, 
of the garden, of the primitive country (Mayax) 
of the race; the empire of the Mayas being placed 



126 



SACRED 3IYSTEBIES AMONG 



between the two great continents, North and South 
America, forming the " Lands of the West." * 




* The legend reads commencing- from the top of the left hand 
column — 

Can Ahau 



Cimen eh for heb Ezanab 



Kan 



the King dead forcing its earthquake has risen 

master of the basin way 

of water 

(beginning again at the top of the second column) 



ED 

Can 



cib 



ik 



lamat 



foot sank air — wind filled up crater — or bosom 

of the volcanoes 



uac luumiloh umiikan can kaTc-mul Timanik 

six fertile lands umukan four volcano Timanik 

Freely translated : 

Can, the master of the basin of water, who was dead, forcing 

his way by means of the eai-thquake, has risen. Can's foot sank, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 127 

This relation of the tree, the serpent and the 
country in the middle of the World, is confirmed by 
the Chinese writers, commentators on the Chou- 
king, one of the most ancient hterary monuments 
of China. Speaking of the Tien-Hoang or kings of 
heaven, Yong-chi says: Tien-lioang had the body 
of a serpent. He was the origin of letters. He 
gave names to the ten Kan, and to the twelve Tchi, 
in order to determine the place of the year; and 
Yuen-leaofan, another writer, says that Kan means 
the trunk of a tree, and that Tchi are the branches, 
reason ivhy they are called Che-cull-Tse, the ttuelve 
children. It is well to remark here that the chil- 
dren of king Can were called Can-chi, which is 
still a family name among the aborigines. 

Ti-HUANG, king of the Earth, is also called Hoang- 
kiun, that is, he who reigns sovereignly in the mid- 
dle of the earth, and also Tse-yxjen, or the son prin- 
ciple, the engendered, the Brahma of the Hindoos, 



the air having filled up the crater of the volcano. Six fertile 
lands have appeared in Umukan (Cuba) and four volcanoes in 
Timanik (one of the small Antilles.) 

The Maya writers, as the author of the Troano, etc,, sometimes 
repi-esented the Earth under the figure of an old woman and 
called it mam — the grandmother. She is hex'e represented hold- 
ing in her left hand the sign of the smoke, and darting a jave- 
lin emblem of the volcanic energy, and in her right hand slie 
holds the symbol of the "Land of the Scorpion" " Zinaan" the 
West India Islands of our days. The deer head represents the 
Maya Empire. 



128 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

the Kneph of the Eygptians, the Mehen of tiie 
Mayas. 

The cross is another sacred symbol much rever- 
enced by all nations, civihzed and semi-civilized, 
ages before the estabhshment of Christianity: and 
although we find representations of it in almost 
every part of the world, from its mere delineation 
scratched on the rock, to the stately temples and 
admirably hewn caves of Elephanta in India, still 
nowhere do we learn of its origin. There are 
several varieties of crosses, but all may be traced 
back to the primitive form which reseixibles the 
Latin cross. 

Among the earhest type known on the Eastern 
continents is the " Cruz Ansata," called the " Key 
of the Nile." It was the ''symbol of symbols" 
among the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the 
Chaldees, being the emblem of the life to come. It 
was placed on the breast of the deceased, sometimes 
as a simple T on the fulcrum of a cone; sometimes 
represented as supported on a heart. It is also seen 
adorning the breasts of statues and statuettes in 
Palenque, Copan, and other ancient cities of Guate- 
mala, Nicaragua, and various locaUties of Central 
America. Everywhere it was associated with luater. 
In Babylon it was the emblem of water deities. In 
Egypt, Assyria, and Britain, it was emblematical of 
creative poiuer and eternity. In India, China, and 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 129 

Scandinavia of heaven and immortality. In Mayax 
of rejuvenescence and freedom from physical suffer- 
ing. The cross, as a symbol, was placed on the 
breast of the initiate after his new birth was accom- 
plished in the Bacchic and Eleusinian mysteries. 

Eemesal and Torquemada assert, in their respec- 
tive works, that when in 1519, the Spaniards, luider 
Hernan Cortez, landed at the island of Cozumel, 
they found crosses which the natives worshiped- as 
gods in their temples. After them many writers, 
on their authority, have affirmed the same thing. 
This, however, seems to have been a mistake. Ber- 
nal Diaz del Castillo, who accompanied Cortez, does 
not mention the existence of such symbols in Cozu- 
mel, but emphatically says that Cortez, having or- 
dered the destruction of the idols that were in the 
sanctuaries, caused an image of the Virgin Mary to 
be placed in their stead, and near it a wooden cross, 
made by two of his carpenters, to be erected, rec- 
ommending the natives to take great care of them 
when he left. Dr. Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, an- 
other of the early writers, maintains that the stone 
crosses found afterward in the island were made in 
imitation of that of Cortez; and Bishop Landa, al- 
though a most zealous missionary, intent on con- 
verting the aborigines to the Catholic faith, does 
not mention the existence of crosses in Cozumel be- 
fore the advent of the Spaniards; a fact he would 
9 



130 SACRED 3IYSTERIES AMONG 

certainly have taken advantage of in his predication 
of the gospel, and would not have failed to mention 
in his work, had he been satisfied that the symbol 
really existed. 

There can be no doubt that in Mayax, m very re- 
mote ages, the cross was an emblem pertaining to 
the sacred mysteries. No external vestiges of the 
symbol are to be found among the remains of the 
temples and palaces of the Mayas, such as those 
seen at Palenque and other places of Central Amer- 
ica. Only one image of a perfect cross have I ever 
met with in the ancient edifices of Yucatan besides 
the ground plan of the sanctuary at Uxmal. (See 
page 35.) It forms part of the inscription carved 
on the lintel of the doorway of the east fagade of the 
palace at Chichen. Still tradition tells us that the 
cross was symboKcal of the '"'' God of Bain.'''' If so, 
they made no image of it, nor did they celebrate 
any festival in honor of it at the time of the con- 
quest, but held it simply as a notion of their fore- 
fathers. 

The ancient Maya astronomers had observed that 
at a certain period of the year, at the beginning of 
our month of May, that owes its name to the god- 
dess Maya, the good dame, mother of the gods, the 
'' Southern Cross, ^^ appears perfectly perpendicular 
above the line of the southern horizon. This is why 
the Catholic church celebrates the feast of the exal- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 131 

tation of the holy cross on the third day of that 
month, which it has consecrated particularly to 
the Mother of God, the Good Lady, the virgin Ma- 
B-ia, or the goddess Isis anthropomorphised by 
Bishop Cyril of Alexandria. 

In aU locahties situated within the 12th and 23d 
degree of latitude north, about the beginning of 
January, the dry season sets in and no more rain 
falls during several months. In May and April in 
the countries hke Yucatan, where there is no water 
on the surface of the ground, aU things become 
parched; the trees and shrubs lose their leaves, na- 
ture looks desolate, all Uving beings thirst for a 
drop of moisture, the birds and other wild crea- 
tures, mad with thirst, lose their characteristic shy- 
ness and venture near the haunts of man, imperil- 
ing thek hves in search of water; death, for want 
of it, seems to threaten aU creation. 

But four bright stars appear in the south. A 
shining cross stands erect above the southern hori- 
zon. It is the heavenly messenger that brings good 
tidings to aU, for it announces that the flood-gates 
of heaven soon shaU be open; that the so longed for 
rain will shortly descend from on high, and vsdth 
it joy and happiness, new Ufe to aU creatures. 
Man hails with thankful heart, welcomes with 
songs of gladness, this brilhant harbinger of the life 
to come, for indeed it is a god for him, the God of 



132 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

Rain that rejuvenates nature, frees man and all 
other creatures from physical sufferings, brings 
felicity to them — heaven therefore — and, with re- 
newed Hfe, immortality. Is it not the creative 
power that is eternally renovating and revivifying 
all things on the surface of the earth ? Is it then 
strange that all nations, in every age, should have 
worshiped the cross as symbol of the life to come 
and immortality, and held it in so great veneration ? 
It must be remembered that all the civihzed nations 
in the ' ' Lands of the West ' ' and in the ' ' Eastern 
Continent,'^ dwelt in latitudes where the constella- 
tion known as "the Southern Cross" is visible 
during the month of May, and that the first showers 
soon f oUow its apparition above the horizon. From 
these of coiu-se it was transmitted to the others fur- 
ther north, that accepted the symbol, without under- 
standing its meaning, and in af tertimes many spec- 
ulations have been indulged in concerning its origin: 
but the unsophisticated natives, in the midst of 
their forests to-day, rejoice at the sight of the 
" Southern Cross " and prepare to sow their fields. 

The origin and meaning of the mystical T, that 
symbol of "hidden wisdom" as it has been de- 
nominated by scholars of our days, found on all 
Egyptian monuments, in the temples, in the hands 
of the gods, in the tombs on the breast of the mum- 
mies, also met with in the ancient edifices of Mayax, 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 133 

and on the statues and altars in the temples at 
Palenque, has given rise to many speculations on 
the part of modern savants. They have not reached 
yet any conclusion, although its name TAU says 
plainly, that it is nothing more or less than a repre- 
sentation of the ^' God of Bain^^ the "Southern 
Cross." Effectively tan is a Maya word composed 
of the three primitives ti, here, a for ha, vi^ater, and 
u month, which translated freely means " This is 
the month for ivater; " hence for the resurrection of 
nature — for the new life to come. 

The complex form of the mystical T which is 
formed of a cone with two arms extending, one 
each side, and an oval placed immediately above 
them, has been denominated by the Egyptologists 
cruz-ansata. It is not of Eygptian origin. It has 
its prototype in the conoidal pillar, surmounted by 
a sphere, used by the Babylonians as symbol of Hfe 
and death; death being but the beginning or nursery 
of life. This emblem was only a reminiscence of 
the yaxche, the sacred tree of the Mayas, under the 
roots of which, tlie natives assert, is always to be 
found a source of pure cold water. The trunk of 
the yaxche, from the foot to the top, forms a perfect 
cone from which the main branches shoot in an 
horizontal direction. Its leafy top, seen from a dis- 
tance, presents the appearance of a half sphere of 
verdure. The cone, the tau and the cruz-ansata 



134 



SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 



were for those initiated to the mysteries the same 
symbol, emblematical of Deity, of the life to come, 
of the dual powers, of fertility. The Mayas and 
other peoples of Central America, in the sculptures 
or paintings, always represented their sacred trees 
with two branches shooting horizontally from the 
top of the trunk, thus presenting the appearance of 
a cross or tau. 




From a Mexican MS. in British Museum. (Add. MS. b. m. 9789.) 

In straying apparently so far from the main ob- 
ject of these pages, and tracing to their true origin 
the primitive traditions of mankind and many 
of the reUgious symbols common to all the civil- 
ized nations of antiquity, by dispelling the mists 
that have accumulated around them in the long vista 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 135 

of ages, my aim has been to show that they all 
emanated from one and the same source, and that 
this source was the country of Mayax, in the 
"Lands of the West," Ancient sacred mysteries, 
have been celebrated in the temples of Eygpt, Chal- 
dea, and India, from ages so remote that it is no 
longer known by whom or where they were first 
instituted. Herodotus tells us that the daughters 
of Danaus instituted the Thesmophoria in honor of 
the goddess Ceres, in imitation of the mysteries cele- 
brated in Egypt in honor of Isis, and taught them 
to the Pelasgic women. That Eumolpus, Idng of 
Eleusis, instituted in his own country the Eleusinian 
mysteries on his return from Egypt, where he had 
been initiated by the priests as Orpheus who 
founded in Thracia those that bear his name; but 
who taught the rites of initiation, the use of the 
symbols and their meaning, to the Hierophants of 
Egypt, to the magi of Chaldea, to the Gymnoso- 
phists of India ? 

The mode of initiation, the use of the same sym- 
bols, with an identical signification ascribed to 
them, by peoples hving so far apart whose customs 
and manners were so unlike, whose rehgion, so far 
at least as external practices were concerned, dif- 
fered so widely, show that these mysteries origi- 
nated with one peoxjle, and were carried to and 
promulgated among the others. As we do not find 



136 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

it mentioned anywhere that they originated either 
with the Eygptians, Chaldees, or Hindoos, and we 
have seen that their primitive traditions have been 
derived from the history of the early rulers of 
Mayax, is it not natural that we should look for the 
institution of the mysteries among the Mayas, since 
we find the same mysterious syzxibols, used by the 
initiates in all the other countries, carved on the 
walls of the temples of their gods, and the palaces 
of their kings ? Their history may afford the clue 
to the original meaning of said symbols, as their 
language has given us the true signification of the 
words used by the celebrating priest to dismiss the 
initiates in the Eleusinian mysteries, or by the 
Brahmins at the end of their religious ceremonies, 
and as it has revealed the so long hidden mystery 
of the mystical Tau. 

That sacred mysteries were celebrated from times 
immemorial in the temples of Mayax, Xibalba, 
Nachan (Palenque of to-day), Copan and other places 
of Central America there can be no doubt, since 
besides the symbols sculptured on the walls of the 
temples and palaces, in two distinct instances, we 
see the rites and the trials of initiation described in 
the Popol-Vuh; and as these rites and trials were 
identical with those to which the apphcants to 
initiation in the mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chal- 
dea and India were subjected, we are justified in 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 



u: 



seeking in Mayax for the causes that may have in- 
duced the founders of the sacred mysteries to select 
the odd numbers 3, 5, and 7, instead of the even 2, 
4, and 6 for mystic numbers. 

The symboHzation of number 3 may possibly be 
accounted for in two different ways. One is sug- 
gested by the sceptre of Poseidon, that Plato says 
was the first king of Atlantis, and is represented by 
the Greek mythologists as being a son of Kronos; 
his three-pronged trident being an allusion to the 
tJwee great islands that formed his kingdom, 
North and South America and Atlan, that now lies 
huried under the waves of the Atlantic ocean. 
The emblem \ \ J placed in the hands of Vul the 
god of the ^^ atmosphere in the Chaldean 
mythology, [ found also in those of the Hin- 
doo gods, may likewise represent the 
three worlds or great regions that 
the Egyptian and Maya hierogram- 
matists designed by the character 
HMMl in the hieroglyph for the 
name of the "Lands of the West," 
which the latter also figured as the 
sacred tree vdth three branches,* a 

"••■ The leg-end literally translated reads as follows: 

tliat is: PPeu, caban for cabahaan has struck again — bat — ax. 
Preely translated: PPeu has struck again the tree tvith his ax. 




138 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

simile of which we find in Scandinavia, in the three 
roots of the sacred ash Yggdrasil, mystic-world 
tree, and the three heavens, and the three worlds 
whose destruction, by water, was prophesied by 
Vishnu. The deification of the "World" com- 
posed of three parts forming a great whole, may 
have been the origin of the Trimourti, or Triune 
god, so prevalent among the ancient nations of 
antiquity, and probably led to the mystification 
of number 3. We find it symboHzed all over the 
earth, in every nation. We see it in Mayax in 
the three platforms on which are raised the most 
ancient edifices ; in the three rooms that formed 
the temple where the mysteries were performed ; 
in the three steps that led to the first or lower 
platform in all sacred edifices ; in the 21 metres 
(3x7) of all the principal pyramids in Yucatan; 
in the three concentric circles of the Zodiac. 
We meet with it constantly in India, in the 
vyahritis or three sacred words; the three orna- 
ments or saranas; the three principal classes; the 
three ways of salvation; the three fetters of the soul 



PPeu was the name of one of the twelve ancient rulers who 
governed the country in times anterior to the great cataclysm 
during which the Atlantic island was submerged. Deified after 
his death he became one of the protecting genii of the land, 
whose effigies still adorn the east facade of the palace at Chichea 
Itza, where they are placed, between the eyes, over the trunks of 
the mastodon's head, and surrounded with an aureola. 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 139 

or gunas; the three eyes in Siva's forehead; the 
three strands of the sacred cord worn by the initi- 
ates of the thi^ee principal classes: the three letters 
of the sacred word A.u.m. In Egypt the three 
thonged flageluni of Osiris; the triple phallus car- 
ried in procession at the festival of the Paamylia in 
honor .of the birth of Osiris, and also the triads, as 
likewise in Chaldea. 

Another way of accounting for the mystification 
of number 3, is by taking heed of the indications of 
Orpheus, Plato, Proclus, and the other Greek philoso- 
phers who had been admitted to the participation 
of the secrets communicated in the mysteries to 
those worthy of being entrusted with them. They 
tell us that the three intellects of the Demiurgos, of 
the triple deity, were " three kings.'" 

The author of the Troano MS., 
relates at some length the history 
of the three sons of king Can; and 
of the troubles that arose among 
them when, after the death of their 
father, the reins of the government 
fell into their hands. Of that fact 
a faint tradition, very much distorted, seems to have 
still existed among the aborigines of Central Amer- 

* Symbol of the three sons of King Can — represented under the 
emblem of the three deer heads — Uluumil cell, "the land of the 
deer," being one of the names of the country of the Mayas. 




140 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

ica at the time of the Spanish conquest; for Bishop 
Landa states: " That is was said that once upon a 
time three lords, brothers, governed the country 
together. ' ' Those three brothers, sons of king Can, 
are reahties, personages who have certainly lived a 
mundane existence, since we not only have their 
portraits, their weapons, and their ornaments, but 
also their mortal remains. They recall vividly the 
three sons of Adam, the three sons of Seb, and the 
three sons of Kronos. The author of the Troano 
MS., informs us that the members of the family of 
king Can were deified after their death, and wor- 
shiped in temples, the ruins of which still exist 
buried in the depths of the forests of Yucatan un- 
der a shroud of verdure. It is not at all improbable 
that Cay, the elder brother and high-pontiff having 
instituted with his father the sacred mysteries, 
took as symbol of the various degrees into which 
they divided them, the number of the members of 
their family, in order to perpetuate their name and 
history through the coming ages. This explanation 
seems the more plausible, if we remember that 
Eusebius tells us that the Egyptians represented the 
supreme Deity under the shape of a serpent (Can- 
hel) that was as superior to the triads, as the father 
is to his children in whom he rejoices. "Numero 
Deus impare gauclet. ' ' In this connection the three 
Hoang-ti, of Chinese mythological times, might 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 141 

also be mentioned. They too had the shape of ser- 
pents. 

Among the ancient civilized nations of the east- 
ern continents number 5 was also considered mys- 
tic. Frequent mention is made of it in their sacred 
books. In China it occupies a conspicuous place 
among the celestial or perfect numbers, as 1, 3, 5, Y, 
9, are called in the y-king, or Canonical book of 
Changes; a very ancient work, so highly esteemed 
by the wise philosopher Confucius (Kong-fou-tse) 
that he was seldom seen without it. There we read 
of the five elements, water, fu^e, wood, metal, and 
earth; of the five kinds of grain; of the five colors, 
black, red, green or blue, yellow and white; of the 
five tastes, salt, bitter, sour, acid, and sweet; of the 
five tones in music; of the five relations of fife be- 
tween men; those between a king and its ministers, 
a father and his children, a husband and his wife, 
elder and younger brothers, and between friends; of 
the five virtues, philanthropy, uprightness, decorum, 
prudence, fidehty; of the five organs of the body, 
kidneys, heart, Hver, lungs, and spleen; of the five 
Chang-ti, or elementary generations; of the five 
parts that form the heavens; of the five seasons of 
the year; of the five genii that govern the five ele- 
ments; of the five principal mountains of the em- 
pire; of the five tutelary mountains. 

In India number 5 is also very prevalent in things 



142 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

pertaining j^articulaiiy to psychological concep- 
tions or religious observances; so they speak of the 
five organs of intelligence, by means of which the 
external objects are perceived; of the five organs 
of action; the five elements, the five great obla^ 
tions; of the five great sacrifices; the five great 
fires, etc. In Mayax it was hkewise a mystic 
nmnber, since we find this simbol • • carved at 
each end of the southern apartment • • in the edi- 
fice consecrated to the celebration of the sacred 
mysteries. It appears in the number of steps lead- 
ing from the courtyards or terraces to the principal 
apartments in the "House of the Governor," "the 
palace of king Cm^" and other edifices at Uxmal, 
and in other buildings. It is the number particularly 
set apart for the second of the three platforms that 
compose the base on which aU the ancient temples 
and palaces of the Mayas are raised. In the rites of 
modern Freemasonry, it is still the sacred number 
related to the second degi^ee. In the Troano MS., 
the legends of all the compartments into which the 
work is divided, as in chapters, are composed of 
five characters, to indicate that said legends are the 
headings, that is lio-ol, the begimiing, the head. 

This number may have become sacred, in the 
mysteries, among the Mayas, in remembrance of 
the number of the children of king Can; for besides 
his three sons Cay, Aac, and Coh, he had, by his 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 143 

wife Zoo, two daughters, Moo and Nicte, whose 
names bear a striking resemblance to T-Mau, one of 
the names of Isis and Nike her sister. So king 
Can by his wife Zoo, had five children, just as Seb 
had by his wife Nut in Egypt; these being Aroeris, 
Set, Osiris, Isis, and Nike. Strange coincidence, 
that may, however, give us a knowledge of the 
origin of the mystification of number five. 

Seven seems to have been the sacred number par 
excellence among all civilized nations of antiquity. 
Why ? This query has never been satisfactorily an- 
swered. Each separate people has given a different 
explanation, according to the pecuhar tenets of 
their religion. That it was the number of numbers 
for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can 
be no doubt. Pythagoras, who had borrowed his 
ideas on numbers from the Egyptians, calls it the 
"Vehicle of life," containing body and soul, since 
it is formed of a quartenary, that is: Wisdom and 
Intellect; and a trinity or action and matter. Em- 
peror JuHan, in Matrem and in Oratio, expresses 
himself thus: " Were I to touch upon the initiation 
into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bac- 
chised, respecting the seven-rayed god, lighting up 
the soul through him, I should say things unknown 
to the rabble, very unknown, but w^ell knowu to 
the blessed Theurgists." 

Whatever that knowledge may have been, and 



144 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

their esoteric explanation of the cause of the mys- 
tification of number seven, can only be surmised to- 
day; but it is not improbable that it was to be found 
in some event in the early history of the race whose 
traditions we find scattered broadcast over the 
Earth, We have seen that the family of king 
Can was composed of seven members, who became 
rulers of the seven cities that bear their names, the 
ruins of which still exist in the forests of Yucatan, 
and by the beauty and richness of the ornamentation, 
the massiveness and finish of the walls of their 
temples and palaces, excite the admiration of the 
beholder. These personages, deified after their 
death, have been worshiped in various countries, 
and are yet in some, under different names. May 
not the remembrance of the existence of these seven 
ancient rulers of Mayax, have been the origin of 
the tradition of the seven divine rulers of Egypt; of 
the seven Manous that according to the Brahmins, 
governed the world in the night of times; of the 
seven Bicliis or holy personages who assisted them; 
of the seven princes of the Persian court; and the 
seven councillors of i\\Q'k\Y\g\ of the seven Ameshas- 
pants or first angels; of the seven great gods of the 
Assyrians; or the seven primitive gods regarded 
by the Japanese as their ancestors and said by them 
to have governed the world during an incalculable 
number of years; of the seven Cabiri, worshiped 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 145 

by the Pelasgians at Lemnos and Samothracia; the 
seven great gods in theogony of the Nahuatls ? Do 
we not see a simile of the Ah Ac chapat or seven- 
headed serpent of the Mayas, totem of their seven 
primitive Riders, that is of the seven members of 
king Cmi's family, in the seven-headed heavenly 
Serpent on which rests Vishnu, the Indian creator, 
that corresponds to the Egyptian Kneph or the 
Mehen (Canhel) of the Mayas ; or in the seven serpents 
that form the crown of Siva; or again in the Seven- 
rayed god Heptaktis, of which the emperor Juhan 
was so reluctant to speak ? 

It would seem that the duration of certain relig- 
ious festivals was fixed to commemorate the exist- 
ence on Earth of these seven primitive gods or rulers, 
the tradition of which we find in aU countries 
where we meet with vestiges of the Mayas. So we 
see the seven days of the festival of the Eleusinian 
mysteries; the seven days of the festival in honor of 
the buU Apis, a symbol of Osiris; the seven days of 
the feast of the tabernacles. The septenary system 
was also adopted for the same purpose no doubt, 
in Mayax, since we find the seven cities dedicated 
to each of the members of king Can's family; the 
seven pyramids that adorned the city of Uxmal; the 
seven turrets that ornamented the south facade of the 
north wing of king Can's palace at Uxmal, each tur- 
ret inscribed with the name of one of the members 
10 



146 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

of his family; those dedicated to the females being 
on the east end of the wing. The seven gradients 
into which is divided the third or uppermost of the 
three platforms that serve as a substructure to the 
temples and palaces; the seven superposed gradients, 
forming all the pyamids, calling to mind the seven 
terraces of the temple of the seven lights at Bor- 
sippa, the most perfect form of Chaldee "temple 
tower," and the " pyramid degrees " at Sakkara, al- 
though in this Egyptian pyramid the gradients are 
more numerous. The seven rooms built on the west 
side of the conical mound that supports the temple 
in which the mysteries were performed at Uxmal: 
each room again being dedicated to one of the 
members of king Can's family; the bust of the per- 
son to whom it was consecrated being affixed over 
the doorway. The seven courses of the stones used 
in the construction of the walls and of the triangu- 
lar arches that form the ceilings of the rooms. The 
same system prevails in the arrangement of the 
grand gallery in the centre of the great pyramid at 
Ghizzeh in Egypt. In that monument as in all the 
antique edifices of Mayax, the proportional scale 
followed by the architects in the dra^dng of their 
plans is in accordance with the numbers 3, 5, 1, and 
their multiples. 

The predilection of the nations of antiquity in 
which the sacred mysteries were celebrated, for 



THE MAYA 8 AND THE QUICHES. 147 

number sevi&n appears in many ways. The seven 
clays that the rainfall that produced the deluge 
lasted, according to the Chaldeans, is reproduced in 
the seven days of the prophesy of the deluge by 
Vishnu to Satyravata, as we read of it in the 
Bhagavata purana; and the seven days of the 
prophesy of the same event, made by the Lord to 
Noah, according to Genesis; on account of the 
seven days of rainfall the Babylonian priests used 
seven vases in the sacrifices; and in the hierarchy of 
Mazdeism, the seven Mar outs or genii of the winds; 
the seven rounds of the lad^ler in the cave of Mith- 
ra. The Aryans had the seven horses that drew the 
chariot of the smi; the seven Apris or shapes of the 
flame; the seven rays of Agni; the seven steps of 
Buddha at his birth. The Egyptians had divided 
their nation into seven classes; the week into seven 
days: according to them the creation was com- 
pleted in seven days. Among the Hebrews, we 
find the seven lamps of the ark, and of Zacharias 
vision; the 56^671 branches ot the golden candlestick; 
the seven days of the feast of the dedication of the 
temple; the seven years of plenty; and the seven 
years of famine. In the Christian dispensation, the 
seven churches with the seven angels at their head; 
the seven golden candlesticks; the seven heads of 
the beast that rose from the sea; the seven seals of 
the book; the seven trumpets of the angels; the 



148 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

seven vials full of the wrath of God; the seven last 
plagues of Apocalypse, In Greek mythology, the 
seven heads of the hydra killed by Hercules, the 
seven islands sacred to Proserpine mentioned by 
Proclus. 

The prevalence of seven as a mystic number 
among the inhabitants of the " Western Continent " 
is not less remarkable. It frequently occurs in the 
Popol- Vuh. We find it besides in the seven families 
said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied 
the mystical personage named Votan, the reputed 
founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by 
some with Palenque. In the seven caves from which 
the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have 
emerged. In the seven cities of Cibola, described 
by Coronado and Niza, the site of which has been 
accurately fixed by Mr. Frank Gushing in the im- 
mediate neighborhood of the village of Zuni. In 
the seven Antilles; in the Seven heroes who, we are 
told, escaped the deluge. 

' Can it be maintained that this acceptation of 
seven as a mystic number by nations so heterogene- 
ous and living so far apart, and from the remotest 
ages, is purely accidental ? The origin of its mysti- 
fication has never been explained. It has been 
transmitted to us by our predecessors, who them- 
selves had accepted it from theirs, without knowing 
why it was made the sacred number of the third 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 149 

• 

degree in the rites of initiation into Freemasonry. 
True, in receiving the degree the initiated are told 
the esoteric meaning attached to it in modern times; 
but this meaning does not give the origin of its 
mystification. In fact, it is an invention of our days. 

That it was the sacred number of the highest de- 
gree of the sacred mysteries in May ax is evident. 
We have seen that 3 was the number of the male 
children of king Can; 5 that of his sons and daugh- 
ters; 7 was consequently that of the members of 
the whole family. It is not therefore improbable 
that to commemorate that fact, 7 was made the 
sacred number of the third degree of their sacred 
mysteries, and that this was the origin of its mys- 
tification. 

In these pages I have presented, without com- 
mentaries, a few of the facts that twelve years re- 
searches among the ruins of the antique temples 
and palaces of the Mayas, a knowledge of their 
language (stiU spoken by their descendants, and in 
some places, as in the vicinity of Peten, in aU its 
pristine purity); the deciphering of certain mural 
inscriptions; the study of the sacred book of the 
Quiches, and the interpretation of passages in the 
Troano MS., have disclosed to me concerning the 
history, civilization, cosmogonical conceptions, re- 
ligious tenets and practices of the ancient inhabi- 
tants of Yucatan. 



150 SACRED MYSTERIES AMONG 

It is for you, reader, to judge if such facts are 
worthy your consideration, and of the truthful- 
ness of my assertion that a knovdedge of the his- 
tory of the primitive dwellers in these "Lands of 
the West" will help to raise the veil that has 
covered during so many centuries the origin of the 
first traditions of mankind. Although in the first 
annual report of the executive committee of the 
"Archaeological institute of America," we read 
that: "The study of American archaeology relates 
indeed to the monuments of a race that never at- 
tained to a high degree of civihzation and that has 
left no trustworthy records of continuous history. 
It was a race whose inteUigence v>ras for the most 
part of a low order, whose sentiments and emotions 
were confined within a narrovv^ range, and whose 
imagination was never quickened to find expression 
of itself in poetic or artistic forms of beauty. From 
what it was or what it did, nothing is to be learned 
that has any direct bearing on the progress of civil- 
ization." With all due respect for the learning of 
the gentlemen who have attached their names to so 
astounding an assertion, I beg to differ from their 
opinion expressed so emphatically. I differ because 
I have seen and photographed the constructions left 
by the mighty races that have preceded us on this 
continent. They have not. Because I have studied 
for years, in situ, these monuments that attest to the 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 151 

high civilization of their builders. They have not. 
Because I have learned the language in which they 
have consigned part at least of their history in in- 
scriptions carved on stones, and read some of said 
inscriptions. They have not. Indeed, on this con- 
tinent, not far from New Orleans, exist the relics of 
past generations which are as interesting, if not 
more so, as those of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and 
Italy; as deserving the attention of aU students of 
archseology, of history, of ethnology, and philology. 
It is time yet to save from utter destruction the last 
records of ancient American history, that are crum- 
bling every day more and more, and are being de- 
stroyed by the hand of ignorance and cupidity. A 
few years more, and aU intelligible traces of them 
will have disappeared, WiU nothing be done in this 
country to preserve what remains of the ancient 
American civihzation ? of that civilization which 
seems to have been the fountain-head at which the 
philosophers of all nations, in the remotest an- 
tiquity, have come to acquire knowledge and drink 
inspiration from the learning and wisdom of the 
Maya sages. 

Americans have established in Athens schools for 
the study of Greek Archaeology; in Alexandria, for 
the decipherment of the inscriptions carved on the 
walls of the temples, on the obehsks, and in the 
papyri found in the tombs in Egypt; is it not time 



152 SACRED JMYSTERIES A3I0NG 

that students in United States should direct their 
attention to the ancient history of the continent on 
which they Uve ? It is not altogether lost, and the 
tongue in which it is written is not a dead language. 
Maya is one of the oldest forms of speech, coeval, if 
not anterior to Sanscrit. The names Alpha, Beta, 
Gamma, etc., etc., of the letters of the Greek alpha- 
bet, form a curious epic poem in that language. 
There are many interesting inscriptions in it that 
only await decipherment to illumine the past records 
of the race in America. Many of these precious doc- 
uments exist in the City of New York. They will 
reveal the history of the mighty nations that have 
dwelt on this "Western Continent;" they will tell 
us of the origin of many of our primitive traditions. 
Why then not found in Yucatan, in the midst of 
the ruins of the temples and colleges of the learned 
priesthood of Mayax, a school where students of 
American archseology can learn with their language, 
what the Maya sages knew of man's origin, of his 
intellectual development, of the past of their people, 
of the colonists they sent to other parts of the world, 
where they carried the arts, sciences, and religion of 
the mother country and its civilization from which 
our own is descended ? 

After twelve years of incessant labors and great 
hardships, unaided by any government or scientific 
society, having to encounter opposition, and sur- 



THE MAYAS AND THE QUICHES. 153 

mount countless difficulties placed maliciously in 
our way by those whose duty it should have been to 
afford us all protection, robbed of our finds by the 
Mexican goverimient which has even refused to 
indemnify us for the money expended in making 
these discoveries, Mrs. Le Plongeon and myself, 
after saving from destruction many important docu- 
ments and relics, have at last found a key that will 
unlock the door of that chamber of mysteries. ShaU 
it be allowed to remain closed much longer ? We 
have lifted, in part at least, the veil that has hung 
so long over the history of mankind in America in 
remote ages. Shall it be allowed to faU again? 
Will no efforts be made by American students, by 
men of wealth and leisure in the United States, to 
remove it altogether ? 



INDEX. 



Aac, liis liistory, 78-79. 

— protecting genius of, 90. 

— offer of marriage by, 83. 
Abel, murder of, 74. 

— meaning of the name of, 85. 
Adam, a myth, 1. 
Adrian, Emperor, 27. 

Ah -ac- chapat, seven-headed 
serpent, its meaning, 67. 

Akkadian language, 33. 

Alom, the creator, 56. 

Alexander the Great, 29. 

Amautas, 47, 

Angrand, quoted, 108. 

Arch, triangular, 37. 

Architects, foundation of soci- 
ety of, 3. 

Ardvi goura anahita (god- 
dess), 28. 

Asp, badge of royalty, why, 
119. 

— figure of Central America, 

120. 
Atlantis, submerged, 41. 

— record of submersion of, in 

Egyjjt and Mayax, 91. 

— figured as a black man, 92. 

— its destruction, 11,500 years 

ago, 106. 
Aum, figured as an equilateral 
triangle, 60. 



Auoergne, (Guy of) burned 
alive, 3, 



B 

Bacon, Roger, quoted, 50. 

Balche, nectar, amrita, bev- 
erage of the gods, 94. 

Bali, murdered, 77. 

Bearded men in Mayax, 71. 

Benoit (Pope), renews bull of 
excommunication, 6. 

Berosiis, on the creation of the 
world according to the 
Chaldees, 110. 

Bird deity at Kioto, Japan, 
107. 

Birch, Samuel, quoted, 26. 

Bitol, creator, 56. 

Black populations in America, 
87. 

Bottles, Chinese, found in the 
tombs of Egypt, in the 
ruins of Hissarlik, 57. 

Brahmins, 29-32. 

Brothers (in India), 29. 

Bruce, Robert, gives protec- 
tion to the Knights Tem- 
plars, 3. 

Building Associations, Ro- 
man, 14. 

Burnouf, Emile, 57. 



156 



INDEX. 



C 



CaMri (mysteries), 18. 
Caviazotz^ god of bats, 44. 
Can, king of Mayax, 45. 

— his family, 77. 

— royal titles of, 83. 

— deified, and represented 

with a m.astodon's head, 
93. 

— members of his family wor- 

shiped in Japan, 95, 

Cay^ high pontiff, 19, 45. 

Chamher of Police of Paris, 
prohibit Freemasonry, 6. 

Charles I., King, 4. 

Chichen-Itza, the city of ser- 
pents, 108. 

Christians, first, 1. 

Church of Rome opposes Free- 
masonry, 5. 

— accuses M . '. of heresy, 

burns them alive, 12. 

— persecutes Chaldean magi- 

c i a n s and Egyptian 
priests, 14. 

Cihola, seven cities of, 48. 

Cilieian pirates, 27. 

Circular buildings in Yuca- 
tan, their use, 64. 

Clement V. (Pope), abolishes 
the order of Knights 
Templars, 3. 

— entices Jacques de Molay 

to Paris, 2. 

— death of, 4. 

Clement XII. (Pope), excom- 
municates all Free- 
masons, 6. 

— persecutes them, 7. 



Clement of Alexandria, quot- 
ed, 25. 

CogoUudo, quoted, 124. 

Coh, murdered by his brother, 
80. 

— who was, 78. 

— analysis of remains of, 84. 

— statue of, robbed by Mexi- 

can Government, 87. 
Colehrook, H. T., quoted, 54, 

72. 
Collegia of Romans, 2, 13. 
Coleraine, Lord, founded a 

lodge in Gibraltar and 

another in Madrid, 6. 
Communications between 

Egypt and India and 

China, 57. 
Conceptions concerning a 

Triune God, 53, 54, 55, 56, 

58. 
Confucius, 56. 

— quoted, 144. 
Coronado, quoted, 148. 
Creation of the world, myth 

found in Chichen-Itza, 
72. 

— myth of, in various coun- 

tries, 109. 

— its origin traced to Mayax, 

111. 

— portrayed on East fagade 

of Palace at Chiehen- 
Itza, 112. 

— tableau of, explained, 114. 
Cromzvell, 4. 

Cross, as saci'ed symbol of 
water deities among all 
nations, of the life to 
come, and eternity, 128. 



INDEX. 



15- 



Cross, as symbol in Bacchic 
and Eleusinian mys- 
teries, 129. 

— symbol of the, in America, 

129. 

— god of rain, 130. 

— southern, 132, 

Crown of lower Egypt, the 
same as that worn by 
kings in Mayax, 118. 

Customs, many similar in In- 
dia, Mayax, and Egypt, 
97. 

Cushing, Frank, quoted, 47, 
148. 

Cyril, (Bishop) murderer of 
Hypathia, persecuted the 
worshipers of Isis and 
Osiris, 16. 



E 

Egyptian civilization, birth- 
place of, 113. 

Emperors, Roman, pei'secuted 
the Chaldean magicians 
and Egyptian priests to 
death, 15. 

Ephoroi, 19, 22. 

EjJoptai, 23. 

Essenes, 1, 

Eiibul'us, quoted, 27, 46. 

Eumolpus, initiated to Egypt- 
ian sacred mysteries in- 
stituted those of Eleusis, 
18. 

EuseMus, quoted, 57, 72, 99. 

Eiisoph, equilateral triangle, 
60. 



D 

Damascius, quoted, 53. 

Danaus'' Daughters, 18. 

Baniel, prophet, quoted, 30, 
45. 

Degrees (3) in Freemasonry, 
among the Jesuits, and 
the Egyptian priests, 12. 

Deluge, tradition of, common 
to all nations where the 
name Maya is found, 
90. 

— what the Egyptians said of, 

91. 

— relation of, in Troano M.S. 

and mural inscriptions, 

92. 
Democritus, 54. 
Druids, 2. 



F 

Fanton, (Dr.) opinion of, 17,33. 

Fergusson, James, quoted, 99, 
122, 123. 

Fernando, VI., of Spain, 
makes Freemasonry high 
treason, 6. 

Fi-Fangpao, 57. 

Findel, J. G., opinion of, 10. 

Four, number, its meaning, 
105. 

Francis of Lorraine (Duke) 
initiated, protects 
masons, founds lodges, 7. 

Fratficide, account of the 
same in Genesis, Ramay- 
ana, papyri of Egypt, 
inscriptions of Mayax, 
84. 



158 



INDEX. 



Fr eem as onry ., various 
opinions concerning orig- 
in of, 1, 2. 

— persecuted, 5, 6. 

— established in France and 

Spain, 6. 

— in Ireland, Italy, America, 

Lisbon, 7. 

— in Germany, 8. 

— origin of, traced to Ameri- 

ca, 23. 
Frederick II. of Prussia, in- 
itiated, assumes the title 
of Gr. •. M.\ Universal, 
frames a constitution, 8, 



G 

Gfanesha, god of letters, its re- 
presentation, its worship, 
96. 

— origin of its elephant head, 
97. 

Garcilasso de la Vega, 
quoted, 46. 

George I. ascends the throne, 
5. 

George (Bishop), persecutes 
the worshipers of Isis 
and Osiris, 16. 

Gods, twelve, of Egyptians, 
Greeks, Mayas, Japan- 
ese, Chinese, 96. 

Grand Master, degree of, 
created, 4. 

Grand Lodge, first establish- 
ed in London, 5, 32. 

Gregory of Nazianze, quoted, 
31. 



Gncumatz, winged serpent, 
the creator, 113. 



H 

Hach-mac, 45. 

Henoch, book of, quoted, 16, 

31, 24, 35, 37, 44. 
Herodotus, quoted, 15. 

— concerning the Thesmo- 

phoria, 18, 60. 

— quoted, 74, 134. 
Hermippus, 38. 

Hermetic books, relation of 
creation in modern. 111. 
Hierophantes, 19, 33. 
Hiu-chin, quoted, 55. 
House, dark, 43. 
House of spears, 43. 

— ice, 43. 

— tiger, 44. 

— fiery, 44. 

— of bats, 44. 
Hunhun Appu, 44. 



Hluminati, incorporated into 

Freemasonry, 9. 
Initiations into Egyptian 

mysteries, but little 

known, 16. 

— into Eleusinian mysteries, 

19, 20, 33, 23, 24. 
In qu, is it ion persecutes 

Masons, 5. 
Isis, meaning of the name, 87. 

— her title, her totem, 88. 



INDEX. 



159 



Isis, believed to be a fabulous 
being, 89. 



James II., 4. 

Japanese^ offspring of the 

twelve gods, 95. 
Jerome, Saint, 31. 
John the Baptist, St. , selected 

patron of the M. ". Order, 

5. 
Juan Gaston of Medicis, 

(Duke) persecutes 

Masons, 7. 



La, meaning of the word, 54. 

Lab-mac, title of high jjriest 
among the Mayas, 30. 

Landa (Bishop), quoted, 64, 
68, 70, 124. 

Larmenio, Johan Marcus — 
appointed Grand Master 
of the K. Templars, 3. 

Leibnitz, initiated into Free- 
masonry, 15. 

Leopard skin as a symbol, 86. 

Lopi, quoted, 55. 



M 



K 

Khan, titles of kings in Asia, 
origin of it, 83. 

Kings, three, 60. 

Kneph. name of the creator, 
53. 

Knights of Christ, order of, 
founded, 3. 

Knights Templars, take ref- 
uge in Scotland and 
Portugal, 3. 

— refuse to recognize the au- 

thority of J. M. Larme- 
nio, 12. 

— received their symbols 

from Christians initiated 

into Egyptian mysteries, 

13. 
Krause, quoted, 13. 
Kronos, king of the " Lands of 

the West," 53. 



Ma, the world, 33. 
Macrobius, his meaning of the 

triangular arch, 63. 
Magi, 30, 32. 
Maha-atma, the great soul, 

55. 
Maha-atmas, the brothers, 29, 

45. 
Manco Capac, founder of the 

Inca empire, 47. 
Marriage, custom among the 

Mayas, 78. 
Maria, Virgin, goddess Maifa- 

Isis anthropomorphised, 

131. 
Mastodon, worship of, 93. 
— explanation of tableau re- 
presenting the worship 

of, 94. 
Maya, name found in various 

countries, 71. Challenges 

Bdli. 76. 



160 



INDEX. 



Maya empire figured as a ser- 
pent, 116. 

— empire figured as a tree, 

125. 

— empire the land of the 

deer in the middle of the 
earth, 126. 

— according to the Chinese 

represented as a tree, 127. 
Mayax, description of the 

country of, 69. 
Matthew., Henry, 51. 
Mathusalath, 37. 
Memnon, King of Ethiopia, 

57. 
Menes, y^iseraen of the Mayas, 

71. 
Mithra, mysteries of, 27. 
Moo, wlio she was, 78. 

— history of conspiracy, 

against, 81. 

— rejects the love of Aac, 82. 
Molay, Jacques de, enticed to 

Paris and arrested, 2. 

— burnt alive, 3. 

— appoints his successor, 3. 
Moses, 51. 

Mystai, the initiated, 19. 



ITumber 7, origin of its sym- 
bohzation, 143, 149. 



O 

Ohlo7ig Square., its meaning, 
34. 

— its origin as symbol, 62. 

— forms the ground plan of 

temples and palaces, 62. 

Oliva, Annello, Fath., 47. 

Origenes, quoted, 28. 

Orpheus , initi at ed into 
Egyptian sacred myster- 
ies founds the orphic, 18, 
53, 60, 135. 

Orphic Mysteries, 72. 

Osiris, 34, 49. 

— murder of, 74. 

— culture hero, 74. 

— his history, 75. 

— meaning of the name, 87. 

— believed to be a mythical 

being, 89. 
Ouranos, 53. 



Nahuatls, 48. 

Names, various, of Cain ex- 
plained, 89. 

Niroukta, 54. 

Mza, 148. 

Number 3, origin of its sym- 
bolization, 136. 

— 5, origin of its symboliza- 
tion, 141, 142. 



Pachacamac, 56. 

Pallas, 28. 

Parsis, 28. 

Payne, Thomas, 2. 

Pentagon, as a symbol, its 
meaning, 63. 

Pentateuch, not written by 
Moses, 51. 

Petroma, 19. 

Phillippe-le-hel, causes the ar- 
rest of J. de Molay, 2. 



INDEX. 



1(J1 



PMllippe-le-hel, death of, 4. 

Philip V. of Spain, persecutes 
masons, G. 

Philostratus, quoted, 29, 57. 

Phcenes, 53. 

PiancM, King of Ethiopia, in- 
itiated, 26. 

Plato, quoted, 41, 53. 

— relation of submersion of 

Atlantis correct, 92. 

Plates from Troano M.S., ex- 
planation of, 117 (note), 
126 (note), 137 (note), 139 
(note). 

Plutarch, quoted, 27, 32, 63, 
74, 90, 93. 

Pompeius, 27. 

Popol-vuh, initiations de- 
scribed in, 42, 56. 

— creation of the world in, 

111. 
Porphyrius, quoted, 27, 28. 

— his explanation of the 

image of the creator, 72. 

Poseidon, 53. 

Pradjapati, 55. 

Preston, J. G., 4. 

Price, Henry, first American 
Grand-master, 7. 

Primander, most ancient 
Egyptian book, also Su- 
preme Intelligence, 110. 

Proclus, quoted, 53, 60. 

Proposal ofinarriage,\Q.oAe of, 
in Mayax and Japan, 83. 

Puttman, B., first Grand-mas- 
ter in Germany, 8. 

Pythagoras, 1. 

— his narrow escape when in- 

itiated, 25, 54. 



Pythagoras, God number ;ii id 

harmony, accord in j.^ to, 

— on number four, 100. [GO. 



Q 

Qaholom, name of the creator, 

56. 
Quichua language, 47. 



R 

Ra, meaning of the name, 54. 

Sab-mag, name of the chief 
of the Magi, 30. 

Ramsay, Michael Andrew, 2. 

— origin of Freemasonry ac- 
cording to, 11. 

Rooms in temples, their shape 
symbolical, 63. 

Rosicrucians, their incor- 
poration into Free- 
masonry, 9. 



S 



Salisbury, Stephen, 84. 

Sanctuary at Uxmal, descrip- 
tion of, 35. 

Schliemann, Henry, quoted, 
57. 

Set, meaning of the name, 89. 

— becomes the evil principle, 

89. 

— enemy of the sun, 89. 

— his protecting genius, 90. 

— his emblem, 90. 



162 



INDEX 



Serpent, 98. 

— origin of its worship un- 

known, 100. 

— when considered an evil 

genius, 100. 

— image of the creator, 100- 

109. 

— traces of its worship all 

over the world, 101. 

— origin of its worship ac- 

cording to the Maya 
priests, 109. 

— symbol of the country in 

May ax and in Egypt, 116. 

— worshiped still in India, 

121. 

— title of the Kings of Mayax, 

121 

— origin of, and tree worship 

in America, 123. 

Solon, 41. 

/8'ozt?, Maya belief in immortal- 
ity of the, 124. 

Sougriva, causes the death of 
Bah, 77. 

— meaning of the name, 90, 
Strabo, quoted, 31. 
Strathmore, Lord, Grand- 
master, 8, 

Symbols, masonic, identical in 
the temples of Egypt, 
Chaldea, India, and Cen- 
tral America, 11. 

— masonic, in Uxmal, 65, their 

meaning, 66, 67. 

— found under the base of 

Cleopatra's needle, 17. 

— of worship, the same in 

Mayax, Egypt,and Peru, 
94, 105. 



Symbolization of number 
three, 136. 

— of number five, 142. 

— of number seven, 149. 



T 



Tao-tse, 55. 

Tau, meaning of mystic, 132. 

— complex form of, its origin, 
133 

Temple of mysteries at Ux- 
mal, 36. 

Temptation, origin of tempta- 
tion of the woman in the 
garden, 82, 83. 

Tholes, initiated to Egyptian 
sacred mysteries, 18. 

Theon, of Smyrna, quoted, 24. 

Theophilus (Bishop), perse- 
cutes the worshipers of 
Isis and Osiris, 16. 

Thesmophoria, mysteries of 
Ceres, 134. 

Tkojnpson, Charles O., certi- 
ficate of chemical analy- 
sis, 84, 85. 

Thoth, god of letters in 
Egypt, his description of 
the creation, 110. 

Tiahuanuco, explanation of 
sculptures on Monolith- 
gate, at, 102. 

Ti-Hoang, king of the country 
in the middle of the land, 
96. 

Tien-Hoang, his twelve chil- 
dren, 96. [124. 

Tree worship in America, 123, 



INDEX. 



1G3 



Tree worship by the Phoenic- 
ians, Druids, Scandina- 
vians, the inhabitants of 
Delos, Samos, Athens, 
Dodona, Arcadia, Ca- 
naan, India, Ceylon, 133, 
Egypt, Assyria, 124. 

— relationship between the 

serpent and tree wor- 
ship, 124. 

— sacred, among the Mayas, 

124. 
Triangle as a symbol, 60. 

— its meaning among the 

Mayas, 61. 

— its meaning among the 

Egyptians, 63. 
Triangular Arches, symbols 
of a Triune God, 62. 



Wilford, Captain, quoted, 33. 

William 111., King of Eng- 
land, initiated into Free- 
masonry, 4. 

Winged circle, symbol of, 
124. 

Words of dismissal, 21. 

— their meaning, 22, 33. 

Worshipers of Isis and Osiris 
persecuted by Bishops 
George, T h e o p h i 1 u s, 
Cyril, 16. 



Zibalba, 43, 45, 48, 49. 



U 

Uati, goddess, genius of lower 

Egypt, its symbols, 115. 
Uiraeoeha, god, 56. 



Yaqui nation, 48. 

Yaxche, sacred tree among the 
Mayas, 124. 

— origin of the cruz-ansata, 
of the cone as symbol of 
the mystic Tau, 132. 



Valmiki, quoted, 75, 76. 
Villoison, Dance de, quoted, 2. 



W 



z 



Zend-avesta, 28. 
Zoroaster, institutes the mys- 
teries of Mithra, 27, 28. 
— his explanation of the tri- 
angular arch, 62. 



Wake, Stanyland, quoted, 99. Zuni Indians, 47, 48. 



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